Gregg Strikes a Bargain with Lucy, Explained

What happens

Lucy Muir moves into Gull Cottage with her daughter Anna and soon meets its resident ghost, Captain Gregg. He tries to scare her off; she holds her ground. They bargain: he keeps the best bedroom and his painting, she keeps the rest of the house, and Anna never learns he exists.

What's really going on

For all his bluster, Gregg is the one giving ground. He talks like he owns the place — "I will not go right away. Why should I?" — and mocks respectable men as "mealy-mouthed bluenoses," yet the bargain he proposes gives Lucy the run of the house. His excuse is the painting: "It's my painting. I didn't invite your criticism," he says, demanding it hang in the bedroom tonight, which is really him wanting a piece of his old life kept close. Lucy, widowed and broke, needs the cottage more than she fears him, so she calls his bluff with "I'm not helpless." Neither will admit it, but both are relieved to have someone to talk to.

Key lines & what they mean

“I never frighten little girls into fits.”

Gregg defends himself: he's not the kind of ghost who torments children into panic. It's a gruff way of saying he isn't a monster.

“and as for me morals, I lived a man's life, and I'm not ashamed of it.”

He refuses to apologize for how he lived. 'Me morals' — his sailor grammar — and his pride are the same thing: he was his own man.

“I have no body. I haven't had one for four years, is that clear?”

He insists he isn't a man at all, just a spirit with no body — so Lucy has nothing to fear from sharing a bedroom with him.

“I always was a fool for a helpless woman.”

His version of affection: he can't help softening toward a woman who needs help. He says it as a complaint, but it's the first hint he's fond of her.

“If you're so confoundedly competent, you'll notice your kettle's about to boil over.”

Instead of answering her pride directly, he points at the kettle she forgot. The practical jab wins the argument: she is competent, just not right now.

“It's my painting. I didn't invite your criticism.”

He cuts her off: criticizing his painting is off-limits, and putting it in the bedroom is non-negotiable. It's the one thing he still claims as his own.

Theme

• Loneliness — Two people with no one else to talk to argue over rooms until they quietly agree to share the house.
• Romance — The bickering sets up the real bargain: Gregg admits he's 'a fool for a helpless woman,' the first crack in his defenses.