Summary
Lord Canterville warns Mr. Otis that the house has been haunted since 1584, but the Minister, who does not believe in ghosts, completes the purchase. On the family's arrival the housekeeper, Mrs. Umney, points out a bloodstain by the library fireplace: the blood of Lady Eleanore de Canterville, murdered there by her husband, Sir Simon, in 1575. Washington removes it with Pinkerton's Champion Stain Remover, lightning and thunder shake the room, and the stain returns every morning, sometimes red, sometimes purple, once emerald green.
At one in the morning the ghost appears, clanking his chains, and Mr. Otis politely asks him to oil them with the Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator; as he flees, the twins throw a pillow at him. Sir Simon, proud of three hundred years of famous frights, swears vengeance, but every plan fails. He falls under the weight of his old suit of armour, Mrs. Otis offers him a remedy for indigestion, and a fake ghost made from a bed-curtain, a brush, a cleaver and a hollow turnip terrifies him. Strings, a butter-slide and a jug of water over a door wear down his nerve, and after the twins leap out at him shouting 'Boo!' he stops appearing.
Returning from a ride with the young Duke of Cheshire, Virginia finds the ghost sitting sadly by a window, watching the autumn leaves fall. She tells him she is sorry for him, reproaches him for killing his wife and for stealing her paints to renew the bloodstain, and is moved when he says he has not slept for three hundred years. He explains that the prophecy on the library window means she must weep for his sins and pray for his soul, so that the Angel of Death will have mercy. She agrees, and the wall closes behind them.
The family searches everywhere, suspecting the gypsies camped in the park, and Mr. Otis and the Duke ride as far as Bexley. At midnight a panel flies open and Virginia steps out, pale, with a casket of jewels, saying that the ghost is dead. She leads them to a secret room where a skeleton lies chained to an iron ring in the wall, reaching for a trencher and jug set just out of reach. One of the twins sees that the withered almond tree has blossomed, and Virginia says that God has forgiven him. Sir Simon is buried under the old yew-tree, and Virginia lays a cross of almond blossom on his coffin.
Mr. Otis tries to return the jewels, but Lord Canterville insists that they are Virginia's, since the Minister bought the ghost's property with the house. In the spring of 1890 Virginia, now Duchess of Cheshire, is presented at the Queen's drawing-room wearing them. After visiting Sir Simon's grave, she tells her husband that the ghost made her see what Life is, what Death signifies and why Love is stronger than both, but she will not tell him what happened.