Chapter 10 of 28 · 2'07"
The Fitzgeralds come to Beech with what they heard at Windward House — crying in the night — and he answers every question except the real one. "Your purchase of the property doesn't establish a social bond between us," he says, and forbids Stella to see them. Rick's last line names what Beech is hiding.
Rick Faces Commander Beech
Rick Accuses Beech of Believing in Ghosts
Rick visits Commander Beech to ask about the crying heard at Windward House. Beech dismisses it as echoes and erosion, refuses to let Stella meet them, and says that buying the house creates no social bond. He demands a promise that no more invitations will be sent; Rick refuses, and ends by saying Beech must believe the house is haunted.
The interview is a duel conducted in drawing-room manners. Beech has an answer for everything — echoes, erosion, a general delicacy — and the more reasonable he sounds, the more he gives away. "Then the trouble must have begun since her death," Rick says, turning Beech's own facts into an accusation about Stella's mother, and Beech reacts as if he had been struck. What he is protecting is not his reputation but Stella herself, and he tries to wall the Fitzgeralds off with a single sentence: "Your purchase of the property doesn't establish a social bond between us." The scene ends with Rick naming the fear Beech will not admit, and the commander's silence after it is louder than any denial.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“Your purchase of the property doesn't establish a social bond between us.”
It draws a hard line in perfect manners, which makes the refusal colder, not kinder.
Formal
“Then the trouble must have begun since her death.”
A calm deduction quietly places the trouble after her death, and the room turns.
Neutral
“Great Scott! You believe the place is haunted.”
He blurts out the very thing the commander denies, catching him in his own fear.
Informal
“Erosion may have changed the structure of the cliffs.”
Geology jargon is used to wave away a ghost story; the straight face is what makes it funny.
Formal
Up next · 11at the mention ofThe scene: Roderick Gives Stella a LiftBecause they hear crying at Windward House and want information. Rick says he came for practical reasons, while his sister believes it is a ghost, so they bring the matter to the house's former owner.
He says Stella is not strong enough to make new friends and insists she does not accept invitations. When pressed, he admits he simply does not want to, and he forbids the Fitzgeralds to send her any more invitations.
He means that buying Windward House was only a business deal. It gives the Fitzgeralds no claim on his family or on Stella's company, and he says so to keep the two households apart.
Because Beech forbids Stella from ever going inside it. To Rick, the only reason to be that strict is that Beech himself fears something supernatural at Windward House.
