James is that! Only Seabury Quinn could produce happier endings in a horror story. “There was no sorrow or yearning in his eyes as he gazed–only a great peace, a calm which seemed to fill and light them with an exquisite beauty.” Happy Endings The two marry and all is fine as the story ends with the child’s ghost looking at Stainton: Only when Stainton uncovers that the children were robbed of their inheritance, does he give the money and the newly renovated house to his cousin Mary. He figures to let the ghost see his sister, the object of his searching, and allows her and her aunt to visit inside the house. Later Stainton meets the sister, his cousin, now grown to a beautiful woman. The girl was taken by relatives but the boy was left to be neglected by his father. Digging into the mystery, he learns the boy was one of a pair of twins.
Stainton sees the ghost, a young boy who searches endlessly through the rooms. The estate agents seem a little hedgy and later he hears about “the child”, a ghost that haunts the property. Stainton comes back from the gold fields a rich man, buys the house he has always wanted. All well-written, enjoyable tales, but let’s take a look at the opener, “Walnut-Tree House”. It contains several good tales, no duds here, including: “Walnut-Tree House”, “The Open Door”, “Nut-Bush Farm”, “The Old House in Vauxhall Walk”, “Sandy the Tinker” and “Old Mrs. (Charlotte) Riddell and her book Weird Stories (1882). James stories, I have had to go further back in time to those who came before. This really came home to me as I have been reading old ghost stories for the holiday season. There was a Jamesian break in the ghost story model that happened around 1900.
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