CW: death.
When I proposed to Caroline, I told her that as long as we lived I would deny her nothing, but I had one request for myself: that we fulfill my own lifelong dream and build a haunted mansion for us.
Caroline was amenable to this. She had never known wealth on my scale, had joined my company at an entry-level position before catching my eye, and she understood that this one eccentricity was a small price for joining the .01 percent. She could afford to save her natural assertiveness for other things. She only asked what my whimsy would entail.
I explained that what I really wanted was the haunted mansion as enshrined in popular culture: a sprawling estate on the edge of a dark forest, with a central structure that gave the impression of storied antiquity, even though it would of course be brand new and equipped with all possible modern conveniences, all out of sight where they would not disturb the illusion. The exterior would feature a well-kept hedge maze and the interior would include secret passages behind bookcases. In all places open to guests, the walls would be galleries of supposed ancestry in the fashions of prior generations, though they and their exhaustive, frightening backstories would be fictions written for us by Stoker-awarded novelists. The main hall would be a massive atrium with stained glass windows and many layers of balcony, behind which would lie mysterious doors to all our home’s many storied rooms. Caring for the place would require a staff of dozens, and decorating in era-appropriate style would add to the many tens of millions in construction costs; but then so would the land, and the stable with the thoroughbred black horses, and so would the donations to the grandest families in Europe for the titles that would allow me to call myself a Lord and Caroline, therefore, a Lady. I carefully explained that she would not be expected to be in character all the time, only during our lavish parties, and only when we were home and not traveling first class to any of the other places where I had less eccentric holdings.
She agreed to this, made a lovely bride, and was a delight to travel with, in all the world’s great places, for the decade it took an army of great architects, Hollywood set designers, and theme-park imagineers to construct our great home. The decades between our respective ages did not prevent our union from being a passionate one; the men in my family have always aged like fine wine, and her relative freshness and youth made a spectacular contrast. For years, we only occasionally returned to Darqueholme Abbey to witness the progress made as the turrets rose, and as the sinister granite statuary landed on the patios. On each of our regular returns, our tours of the interiors filled with laughter as we exchanged jests in the four-story library and tested the devices that, whenever activated, generated mysterious and ominous moans and the sounds of rattling chains. Caroline suggested one feature herself, the isolated hallway, leading nowhere of importance, with permanent cobwebs that hinted it was one place our otherwise immaculate housekeeping could not touch; she called it the Shirley Jackson wing, proving that she had not skimped on her research. As completion drew near, we hired a live-in staff, all British or capable of faking Britishness, one a disgraced film actor we cast as the ominous Head Butler, who would not mind staying in character whenever in residence.
After ten years, we finally moved in and enjoyed the happiest night of our lives together, calling each other by the titles that were reserved for our residency in this house. On the second night, we threw a housewarming gala attended by so many of the world’s wealthiest and most celebrated people that the world economy might have shattered forever, had the roof had the bad taste to cave in on them.
And then on the third night, I whispered about the biggest surprise of all, and led her down to the secret sub-basement, which was empty save for the freshly excavated grave I had prepared for her.
She did not understand what was happening until just before the very end.
I’d been so clear, all these years. My lifelong dream had always been to be the master of a haunted house.
