The Secret Life of Arthur

The Secret Life of Arthur

The dinner bell rang with its usual tinny voice, starling Arthur out of his reverie. He had been watching two black beetles chase one another across the windowsill and hadn’t noticed the sky growing dark. 

It wasn’t as though that mattered to him, really; spirits such as himself didn’t need light to see. 

The attic room was painted scarlet and lavender in the approaching dusk; the retreating sun piercing the twilight with a final vindictive swath of golden glory before it sank below the horizon and relinquished its kingdom to the cold hand of night. 

Somewhere in the house, the clattering of small feet down the stairs hinted that the children had also heard the dinner bell. 

Sighing, Arthur drifted after them, passing through the wall into the passageway with a shiver. The emerald-coloured wallpaper, with its raised black velvet embossing, always tickled. He had heard the lady of the house insisting on many occasions that she was going to have it taken down and replaced, but Arthur knew as well as she did that the colour had grown on her since the family had moved in several years prior. 

Lazily moving across the hall and through the floor of the landing, Arthur passed by the second story and floated down the stairway into the mahogany dining room. The same room where he had met his death all those years ago. 

It was a heart attack, the doctors had said, when they arrived too late to save him. Idiots. Anyone could have told them that Arthur’s sister had wanted him dead, and slipped a pinch of rat poison into the roast. The plan had backfired gloriously, however, and only a week after she took possession of the house she had coveted so badly, she was hit by a motorcar not twenty paces from the front door and died instantly. 

And so, at the ripe age of thirty-two, Arthur had watched her crumple under the wheels of the car from his view out the front window of the attic. Her spirit wandered the street now, bound to the place she had met her death, and would remain there until the final trumpet. Arthur watched her occasionally, as she drifted up and down the avenue, and resisted the urge to make faces at her whenever she passed by. 

Arthur did not regret dying in his own home. It was rather bothersome not to be able to read any of his books, or play his beloved piano, but he delighted in reading over the shoulders of his house’s new occupants, and when the eldest daughter had her piano lessons, Arthur would tuck himself into the corner and listen with all his heart. 

That same daughter was tapping her fingers lightly on the table now, absently going through the motions of Chopin’s Nocturne in C Sharp Minor. Her concert was this Saturday, and Arthur was disappointed that it would be held at her grandmother’s estate. He had been enjoying hearing her progress, and wished he could witness her moment of victory over the piece that had plagued her for months. 

He settled himself into a spare chair at the far end of the room, watching as the family passed dishes around the table. It had been nearly 50 years since a morsel of food had passed his lips. Recalling with pleasure that delightful chocolate torte he had ended that fateful evening with, just as the arsenic had begun to kick in, he gave a ghostly smile. 

Had he the ability to smell, the scent of ham and potatoes would have been torturous. For now, the sight alone was enough to make him wish he had gone with his bachelor friends to the restaurant they usually patronised on Thursday evenings, instead of taking his sister’s invitation to stay home for supper. 

It wasn’t as though he was hungry; that wasn’t quite the right word for it. It was more that he was dreadfully conscious of  his separation from the living world, and the sight of the family gathered about the table, sharing food, conversations, and anecdotes made it all the worse. He half-hoped one of them would choke on a bit of ham and expire, so he could have some company. Perhaps one day, when the parents were old and grey, he could give them a fright by blowing a vase off the mantelpiece, or by breathing down their neck while they were going downstairs, and hey-presto! A simple shock to an old body would provide him with an eternal companion. 

The family was not aware of his presence in their lives. While some ghosts made themselves terrible nuisances to the living, Arthur detested that sort of behaviour. He was satisfied with his quiet observance of their everyday lives, and never made himself known. The house had lain empty for years before this family had moved in, with their bright chatter and musical rhythms, and he wasn’t about to ruin that now. 

The youngest child was staring at the space where Arthur sat now. He knew very well that the little blighter couldn’t see him, at least not fully, but small children were more attune to his presence than the older ones. What he saw was likely nothing more than a ripple in the fabric of the air, a slight distortion in the lines of the panelling. The other children had never paid Arthur any mind, and he recalled with some bitterness how the oldest boy had complained of a draft when Arthur passed him in the hallway. It wasn’t his fault that ghosts are made primarily of ether and cold night air. Nevertheless, Arthur determined it unseemly to blow a cool breath down the boy’s collar in retaliation, and carried on. 

The youngest, however, had noticed his presence on multiple occasions, and Arthur had no reason to avoid him. In fact, the child was rather endearing. He was particularly amusing, and his smart remarks when his siblings teased him reminded Arthur very much of himself. Come to think of it, the child would be an excellent conversationalist with which to pass the lonely evenings. 

Contemplating whether or not it would be immoral to coax the child off the third-story landing, or perhaps to whisper a suggestion that the laundry chute would be an excellent place to play, Arthur faded into the oaken panelling, Chopin’s Nocturne playing in his memory, and if you listened very carefully, you might just have heard a hint of spectral laughter as he vanished into the hallway and out of sight.