The ghosts appear but do nothing. All the ghosts can do is stare at the governess or one of the children. When a person reports a ghost sighting the ghost usually gives a message or does a physical action.
Quint and Jessel never speak, perform any noteworthy actions, or even approach the governess or the children; they each time simply appear and stare at the governess or at one of the children. For example, recall the governess's conversation with Mrs. Grose in chapter five immediately following the second appearance of Quint in chapter four. In their discussion of the first apparition, Mrs. Grose asks, "What was he doing on the tower?" The governess answers, "Only standing there and staring down at me" (188). Later, in chapter seven, describing to Mrs. Grose the first appearance of Jessel, the governess says, "She just appeared and stood there..." (204). Indeed, it sometimes seems that one of the most eerie things about Quint is that he does so little. In relating her vision of Quint on the staircase just before dawn (chapter nine) the governess goes out of her way to stress this point:
It was the dead silence of our long gaze at such close quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its only note of the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and at such an hour we still at least would have spoken. Something would have passed in life between us; if nothing had passed one of us would have moved (223).
No one else sees ghosts (governess points out to Grose + flora)
