The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories 1 – Marryat · Verses Across
Literature · Short Stories
The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories 1Opening pages
18
Literature · Short Stories
The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories 1
Opening pages
MarryatEnglish
THE
GHOST OF CHARLOTTE CRAY.
Mr. Sigismund Braggett was sitting in the little room he called his study, wrapped in a profound--not to say a mournful--reverie. Now, there was nothing in the present life nor surroundings of Mr. Braggett to account for such a demonstration. He was a publisher and bookseller; a man well to do, with a thriving business in the city, and the prettiest of all pretty villas at Streatham. And he was only just turned forty; had not a grey hair in his head nor a false tooth in his mouth; and had been married but three short months to one of the fairest and most affectionate specimens of English womanhood that ever transformed a bachelor’s quarters into Paradise.
What more could Mr. Sigismund Braggett possibly want? Nothing! His trouble lay in the fact that he had got rather more than he wanted. Most of us have our little peccadilloes in this world--awkward reminiscences that we would like to bury five fathoms deep, and never hear mentioned again, but that have an uncomfortable habit of cropping up at the most inconvenient moments; and no mortal is more likely to be troubled with them than a middle-aged bachelor who has taken to matrimony.
Mr. Sigismund Braggett had no idea what he was going in for when he led the blushing Emily Primrose up to the altar, and swore to be hers, and hers only, until death should them part. He had no conception a woman’s curiosity could be so keen, her tongue so long, and her inventive faculties so correct. He had spent whole days before the fatal moment of marriage in burning letters, erasing initials, destroying locks of hair, and making offerings of affection look as if he had purchased them with his own money. But it had been of little avail. Mrs. Braggett had swooped down upon him like a beautiful bird of prey, and wheedled, coaxed, or kissed him out of half his secrets before he knew what he was about. But he had never told her about Charlotte Cray. And now he almost wished that he had done so, for Charlotte Cray was the cause of his present dejected mood.
Now, there are ladies and ladies in this world. Some are very shy, and will only permit themselves to be wooed by stealth. Others, again, are the pursuers rather than the pursued, and chase the wounded or the flying even to the very doors of their stronghold, or lie in wait for them like an octopus, stretching out their tentacles on every side in search of victims.
And to the latter class Miss Charlotte Cray decidedly belonged. Not a person worth mourning over, you will naturally say. But, then, Mr. Sigismund Braggett had not behaved well to her. She was one of the “peccadilloes.” She was an authoress--not an author, mind you, which term smacks more of the profession than the sex--but an “authoress,” with lots of the “ladylike” about the plots of her stories and metre of her rhymes. They had come together in the sweet connection of publisher and writer--had met first in a dingy, dusty little office at the back of his house of business, and laid the foundation of their friendship with the average amount of chaffering and prevarication that usually attend such proceedings.
Mr. Braggett ran a risk in publishing Miss Cray’s tales or verses, but he found her useful in so many other ways that he used occasionally to hold forth a sop to Cerberus in the shape of publicity for the sake of keeping her in his employ. For Miss Charlotte Cray--who was as old as himself, and had arrived at the period of life when women are said to pray “Any, good Lord, any!”--was really a clever woman, and could turn her hand to most things required of her, or upon which she had set her mind; and she had most decidedly set her mind upon marrying Mr. Braggett, and he--to serve his own purposes--had permitted her to cherish the idea, and this was the Nemesis that was weighing him down in the study at the present moment. He had complimented Miss Cray, and given her presents, and taken her out a-pleasuring, all because she was useful to him, and did odd jobs that no one else would undertake, and for less than any one else would have accepted; and he had known the while that she was in love with him, and that she believed he was in love with her.
He had not thought much of it at the time. He had not then made up his mind to marry Emily Primrose, and considered that what pleased Miss Cray, and harmed no one else, was fair play for all sides. But he had come to see things differently now. He had been married three months, and the first two weeks had been very bitter ones to him. Miss Cray had written him torrents of reproaches during that unhappy period, besides calling day after day at his office to deliver them in person. This and her threats had frightened him out of his life. He had lived in hourly terror lest the clerks should overhear what passed at their interviews, or that his wife should be made acquainted with them.
He had implored Miss Cray, both by word of mouth and letter, to cease her persecution of him; but all the reply he received was that he was a base and perjured man, and that she should continue to call at his office, and write to him through the penny post, until he had introduced her to his wife. For therein lay the height and depth of his offending. He had been afraid to bring Emily and Miss Cray together, and the latter resented the omission as an insult. It was bad enough to find that Sigismund Braggett, whose hair she wore next her heart, and whose photograph stood as in a shrine upon her bedroom mantelpiece, had married another woman, without giving her even the chance of a refusal, but it was worse still to come to the conclusion that he did not intend her to have a glimpse into the garden of Eden he had created for himself.
Miss Cray was a lady of vivid imagination and strong aspirations. All was not lost in her ideas, although Mr. Braggett had proved false to the hopes he had raised. Wives did not live for ever; and the chances and changes of this life were so numerous, that stranger things had happened than that Mr. Braggett might think fit to make better use of the second opportunity afforded him than he had done of the first. But if she were not to continue even his friend, it was too hard. But the perjured publisher had continued resolute, notwithstanding all Miss Cray’s persecution, and now he had neither seen nor heard from her for a month; and, manlike, he was beginning to wonder what had become of her, and whether she had found anybody to console her for his untruth. Mr. Braggett did not wish to comfort Miss Cray himself; but he did not quite like the notion of her being comforted.
After all--so he soliloquised--he had been very cruel to her; for the poor thing was devoted to him. How her eyes used to sparkle and her cheek to flush when she entered his office, and how eagerly she would undertake any work for him, however disagreeable to perform! He knew well that she had expected to be Mrs. Braggett, and it must have been a terrible disappointment to her when he married Emily Primrose.
Why had he not asked her out to Violet Villa since? What harm could she do as a visitor there? particularly if he cautioned her first as to the peculiarity of Mrs. Braggett’s disposition, and the quickness with which her jealousy was excited. It was close upon Christmas-time, the period when all old friends meet together and patch up, if they cannot entirely forget, everything that has annoyed them in the past. Mr. Braggett pictured to himself the poor old maid sitting solitary in her small rooms at Hammersmith, no longer able to live in the expectation of seeing his manly form at the wicket-gate, about to enter and cheer her solitude. The thought smote him as a two-edged sword, and he sat down at once and penned Miss Charlotte a note, in which he inquired after her health, and hoped that they should soon see her at Violet Villa.
He felt much better after this note was written and despatched. He came out of the little study and entered the cheerful drawing-room, and sat with his pretty wife by the light of the fire, telling her of the lonely lady to whom he had just proposed to introduce her.
“An old friend of mine, Emily. A clever, agreeable woman, though rather eccentric. You will be polite to her, I know, for my sake.”
“An old woman, is she?” said Mrs. Braggett, elevating her eyebrows. “And what do you call ‘old,’ Siggy, I should like to know?”
“Twice as old as yourself, my dear--five-and-forty at the very least, and not personable-looking, even for that age. Yet I think you will find her a pleasant companion, and I am sure she will be enchanted with you.”
“I don’t know that: clever women don’t like me, as a rule, though I don’t know why.”
“They are jealous of your beauty, my darling; but Miss Cray is above such meanness, and will value you for your own sake.”
“She’d better not let me catch her valuing me for yours,” responded Mrs. Braggett, with a flash of the eye that made her husband ready to regret the dangerous experiment he was about to make of bringing together two women who had each, in her own way, a claim upon him, and each the will to maintain it.
So he dropped the subject of Miss Charlotte Cray, and took to admiring his wife’s complexion instead, so that the evening passed harmoniously, and both parties were satisfied.
For two days Mr. Braggett received no answer from Miss Cray, which rather surprised him. He had quite expected that on the reception of his invitation she would rush down to his office and into his arms, behind the shelter of the ground-glass door that enclosed his chair of authority. For Miss Charlotte had been used on occasions to indulge in rapturous demonstrations of the sort, and the remembrance of Mrs. Braggett located in Violet Villa would have been no obstacle whatever to her. She believed she had a prior claim to Mr. Braggett. However, nothing of the kind happened, and the perjured publisher was becoming strongly imbued with the idea that he must go out to Hammersmith and see if he could not make his peace with her in person, particularly as he had several odd jobs for Christmastide, which no one could undertake so well as herself, when a letter with a black-edged border was put into his hand. He opened it mechanically, not knowing the writing; but its contents shocked him beyond measure.
“Honoured Sir,--I am sorry to tell you that Miss Cray died at my house a week ago, and was buried yesterday. She spoke of you several times during her last illness, and if you would like to hear any further particulars, and will call on me at the old address, I shall be most happy to furnish you with them.--Yours respectfully,
“Mary Thompson.”
When Mr. Braggett read this news, you might have knocked him over with a feather. It is not always true that a living dog is better than a dead lion. Some people gain considerably in the estimation of their friends by leaving this world, and Miss Charlotte Cray was one of them. Her persecution had ceased for ever, and her amiable weaknesses were alone held in remembrance. Mr. Braggett felt a positive relief in the knowledge that his dead friend and his wife would never now be brought in contact with each other; but at the same time he blamed himself more than was needful, perhaps, for not having seen nor communicated with Miss Cray for so long before her death. He came down to breakfast with a portentously grave face that morning, and imparted the sad intelligence to Mrs. Braggett with the air of an undertaker. Emily wondered, pitied, and sympathised, but the dead lady was no more to her than any other stranger; and she was surprised her husband looked so solemn over it all. Mr. Braggett, however, could not dismiss the subject easily from his mind. It haunted him during the business hours of the morning, and as soon as he could conveniently leave his office, he posted away to Hammersmith. The little house in which Miss Cray used to live looked just the same, both inside and outside: how strange it seemed that she should have flown away from it for ever! And here was her landlady, Mrs. Thompson, bobbing and curtseying to him in the same old black net cap with artificial flowers in it, and the same stuff gown she had worn since he first saw her, with her apron in her hand, it is true, ready to go to her eyes as soon as a reasonable opportunity occurred, but otherwise the same Mrs. Thompson as before. And yet she would never wait upon her again:
“It was all so sudden, sir,” she said, in answer to Mr. Braggett’s inquiries, “that there was no time to send for nobody.”
“But Miss Cray had my address.”
“Ah! perhaps so; but she was off her head, poor dear, and couldn’t think of nothing. But she remembered you, sir, to the last; for the very morning she died, she sprung up in bed and called out, ‘Sigismund! Sigismund!’ as loud as ever she could, and she never spoke to anybody afterwards, not one word.”
“She left no message for me?”
“None, sir. I asked her the day before she went if I was to say nothing to you for her (knowing you was such friends), and all her answer was, ‘I wrote to him. He’s got my letter.’ So I thought, perhaps, you had heard, sir.”
“Not for some time past. It seems terribly sudden to me, not having heard even of her illness. Where is she buried?”
“Close by in the churchyard, sir. My little girl will go with you and show you the place, if you’d like to see it.”
Mr. Braggett accepted her offer and left.
When he was standing by a heap of clods they called a grave, and had dismissed the child, he drew out Miss Cray’s last letter, which he carried in his pocket, and read it over.
“You tell me that I am not to call at your office again, except on business” (so it ran), “nor to send letters to your private address, lest it should come to the knowledge of your wife, and create unpleasantness between you; but I shall call, and I shall write, until I have seen Mrs. Braggett, and, if you don’t take care, I will introduce myself to her and tell her the reason you have been afraid to do so.”
This letter had made Mr. Braggett terribly angry at the time of reception. He had puffed and fumed, and cursed Miss Charlotte by all his gods for daring to threaten him. But he read it with different feelings now Miss Charlotte was down there, six feet beneath the ground he stood on, and he could feel only compassion for her frenzy, and resentment against himself for having excited it. As he travelled home from Hammersmith to Streatham, he was a very dejected publisher indeed.
He did not tell Mrs. Braggett the reason of his melancholy, but it affected him to that degree that he could not go to office on the following day, but stayed at home instead, to be petted and waited upon by his pretty wife, which treatment resulted in a complete cure. The next morning, therefore, he started for London as briskly as ever, and arrived at office before his usual time. A clerk, deputed to receive all messages for his master, followed him behind the ground-glass doors, with a packet of letters.
“Mr. Van Ower was here yesterday, sir. He will let you have the copy before the end of the week, and Messrs. Hanley’s foreman called on particular business, and will look in to-day at eleven. And Mr. Ellis came to ask if there was any answer to his letter yet; and Miss Cray called, sir; and that’s all.”
“Who did you say?” cried Braggett.
“Miss Cray, sir. She waited for you above an hour, but I told her I thought you couldn’t mean to come into town at all, so she went.”
“Do you know what you’re talking about, Hewetson? You said Miss Cray!”
“And I meant it, sir--Miss Charlotte Cray. Burns spoke to her as well as I.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Braggett, turning as white as a sheet. “Go at once and send Burns to me.” Burns came.
“Burns, who was the lady that called to see me yesterday?”
“Miss Cray, sir. She had a very thick veil on, and she looked so pale that I asked her if she had been ill, and she said ‘Yes.’ She sat in the office for over an hour, hoping you’d come in, but as you didn’t, she went away again.”
“Did she lift her veil?”
“Not whilst I spoke to her, sir.”
“How do you know it was Miss Cray, then?”
The clerk stared. “Well, sir, we all know her pretty well by this time.”
“Did you ask her name?”
“No, sir; there was no need to do it.”
“You’re mistaken, that’s all, both you and Hewetson. It couldn’t have been Miss Cray! I know for certain that she is--is--is--not in London at present. It must have been a stranger.”
“It was not, indeed, sir, begging your pardon. I could tell Miss Cray anywhere, by her figure and her voice, without seeing her face. But I did see her face, and remarked how awfully pale she was--just like death, sir!”
“There! there! that will do! It’s of no consequence, and you can go back to your work.”
But any one who had seen Mr. Braggett, when left alone in his office, would not have said he thought the matter of no consequence. The perspiration broke out upon his forehead, although it was December, and he rocked himself backward and forward in his chair with agitation.
At last he rose hurriedly, upset his throne, and dashed through the outer premises in the face of twenty people waiting to speak to him. As soon as he could find his voice, he hailed a hansom, and drove to Hammersmith. Good Mrs. Thompson opening the door to him, thought he looked as if he had just come out of a fever.
“Lor’ bless me, sir! whatever’s the matter?”
“Mrs. Thompson, have you told me the truth about Miss Cray? Is she really dead?”
“Really dead, sir! Why, I closed her eyes, and put her in the coffin with my own hands! If she ain’t dead, I don’t know who is! But if you doubt my word, you’d better ask the doctor that gave the certificate for her.”
“What is the doctor’s name?”
“Dodson; he lives opposite.”
“You must forgive my strange questions, Mrs. Thompson, but I have had a terrible dream about my poor friend, and I think I should like to talk to the doctor about her.”
“Oh, very good, sir,” cried the landlady, much offended. “I’m not afraid of what the doctor will tell you. She had excellent nursing and everything as she could desire, and there’s nothing on my conscience on that score, so I’ll wish you good morning.” And with that Mrs. Thompson slammed the door in Mr. Braggett’s face.
He found Dr. Dodson at home.
“If I understand you rightly,” said the practitioner, looking rather steadfastly in the scared face of his visitor, “you wish, as a friend of the late Miss Cray’s, to see a copy of the certificate of her death? Very good, sir; here it is. She died, as you will perceive, on the twenty-fifth of November, of peritonitis. She had, I can assure you, every attention and care, but nothing could have saved her.”
“You are quite sure, then, she is dead?” demanded Mr. Braggett, in a vague manner.
The doctor looked at him as if he were not quite sure if he were sane.
“If seeing a patient die, and her corpse coffined and buried, is being sure she is dead, I am in no doubt whatever about Miss Cray.”
“It is very strange--most strange and unaccountable,” murmured poor Mr. Braggett, in reply, as he shuffled out of the doctor’s passage, and took his way back to the office.
Here, however, after an interval of rest and a strong brandy and soda, he managed to pull himself together, and to come to the conclusion that the doctor and Mrs. Thompson could not be mistaken, and that, consequently, the clerks must. He did not mention the subject again to them, however; and as the days went on, and nothing more was heard of the mysterious stranger’s visit, Mr. Braggett put it altogether out of his mind.
At the end of a fortnight, however, when he was thinking of something totally different, young Hewetson remarked to him, carelessly,--
“Miss Cray was here again yesterday, sir. She walked in just as your cab had left the door.”
All the horror of his first suspicions returned with double force upon the unhappy man’s mind.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” he gasped, angrily, as soon as he could speak. “Don’t attempt to play any of your tricks on me, young man, or it will be the worse for you, I can tell you.”
“Tricks, sir!” stammered the clerk. “I don’t know what you are alluding to. I am only telling you the truth. You have always desired me to be most particular in letting you know the names of the people who call in your absence, and I thought I was only doing my duty in making a point of ascertaining them----”
“Yes, yes! Hewetson, of course,” replied Mr. Braggett, passing his handkerchief over his brow, “and you are quite right in following my directions as closely as possible; only--in this case you are completely mistaken, and it is the second time you have committed the error.”
“Mistaken!”
“Yes!--as mistaken as it is possible for a man to be! Miss Cray could not have called at this office yesterday.”
“But she did, sir.”
“Am I labouring under some horrible nightmare?” exclaimed the publisher, “or are we playing at cross purposes? Can you mean the Miss Cray I mean?”
“I am speaking of Miss Charlotte Cray, sir, the author of ‘Sweet Gwendoline,’--the lady who has undertaken so much of our compilation the last two years, and who has a long nose, and wears her hair in curls. I never knew there was another Miss Cray; but if there are two, that is the one I mean.”
“Still I cannot believe it, Hewetson, for the Miss Cray who has been associated with our firm died on the twenty-fifth of last month.”
“Died, sir! Is Miss Cray dead? Oh, it can’t be! It’s some humbugging trick that’s been played upon you, for I’d swear she was in this room yesterday afternoon, as full of life as she’s ever been since I knew her. She didn’t talk much, it’s true, for she seemed in a hurry to be off again, but she had got on the same dress and bonnet she was in here last, and she made herself as much at home in the office as she ever did. Besides,” continued Hewetson, as though suddenly remembering something, “she left a note for you, sir.”
“A note! Why did you not say so before?”
“It slipped my memory when you began to doubt my word in that way, sir. But you’ll find it in the bronze vase. She told me to tell you she had placed it there.”
Mr. Braggett made a dash at the vase, and found the three-cornered note as he had been told. Yes! it was Charlotte’s handwriting, or the facsimile of it, there was no doubt of that; and his hands shook so he could hardly open the paper. It contained these words:
“You tell me that I am not to call at your office again, except on business, nor to send letters to your private address, lest it should come to the knowledge of your wife, and create unpleasantness between you; but I shall call, and I shall write until I have seen Mrs. Braggett, and if you don’t take care I will introduce myself to her, and tell her the reason you have been afraid to do so.”
Precisely the same words, in the same writing of the letter he still carried in his breast pocket, and which no mortal eyes but his and hers had ever seen. As the unhappy man sat gazing at the opened note, his whole body shook as if he were attacked by ague.
“It is Miss Cray’s handwriting, isn’t it, sir?”
“It looks like it, Hewetson, but it cannot be. I tell you it is an impossibility! Miss Cray died last month, and I have seen not only her grave, but the doctor and nurse who attended her in her last illness. It is folly, then, to suppose either that she called here or wrote that letter.”
“Then who could it have been, sir?” said Hewetson, attacked with a sudden terror in his turn.
“That is impossible for me to say; but should the lady call again, you had better ask her boldly for her name and address.”
“I’d rather you’d depute the office to anybody but me, sir,” replied the clerk, as he hastily backed out of the room.
Mr. Braggett, dying with suspense and conjecture, went through his business as best he could, and hurried home to Violet Villa.
There he found that his wife had been spending the day with a friend, and only entered the house a few minutes before himself.
“Siggy, dear!” she commenced, as soon as he joined her in the drawing-room after dinner; “I really think we should have the fastenings and bolts of this house looked to. Such a funny thing happened whilst I was out this afternoon. Ellen has just been telling me about it.”
“What sort of a thing, dear?”
“Well, I left home as early as twelve, you know, and told the servants I shouldn’t be back until dinner-time; so they were all enjoying themselves in the kitchen, I suppose, when cook told Ellen she heard a footstep in the drawing-room. Ellen thought at first it must be cook’s fancy, because she was sure the front door was fastened; but when they listened, they all heard the noise together, so she ran upstairs, and what on earth do you think she saw?”
“How can I guess, my dear?”
“Why, a lady, seated in this very room, as if she was waiting for somebody. She was oldish, Ellen says, and had a very white face, with long curls hanging down each side of it; and she wore a blue bonnet with white feathers, and a long black cloak, and--”
“Emily, Emily! Stop! You don’t know what you’re talking about. That girl is a fool: you must send her away. That is, how could the lady have got in if the door was closed? Good heavens! you’ll all drive me mad between you with your folly!” exclaimed Mr. Braggett, as he threw himself back in his chair, with an exclamation that sounded very like a groan.
Pretty Mrs. Braggett was offended. What had she said or done that her husband should doubt her word? She tossed her head in indignation, and remained silent. If Mr. Braggett wanted any further information, he would have to apologise.
“Forgive me, darling,” he said, after a long pause. “I don’t think I’m very well this evening, but your story seemed to upset me.”
“I don’t see why it should upset you,” returned Mrs. Braggett. “If strangers are allowed to come prowling about the house in this way, we shall be robbed some day, and then you’ll say I should have told you of it.”
“Wouldn’t she--this person--give her name?”
“Oh! I’d rather say no more about it. You had better ask Ellen.”
“No, Emily! I’d rather hear it from you.”
“Well, don’t interrupt me again, then. When Ellen saw the woman seated here, she asked her her name and business at once, but she gave no answer, and only sat and stared at her. And so Ellen, feeling very uncomfortable, had just turned round to call up cook, when the woman got up, and dashed past her like a flash of lightning, and they saw nothing more of her!”
“Which way did she leave the house?”
“Nobody knows any more than how she came in. The servants declare the hall door was neither opened nor shut--but, of course, it must have been. She was a tall gaunt woman, Ellen says, about fifty, and she’s sure her hair was dyed. She must have come to steal something, and that’s why I say we ought to have the house made more secure. Why, Siggy! Siggy! what’s the matter? Here, Ellen! Jane! come, quick, some of you! Your master’s fainted!”
And, sure enough, the repeated shocks and horrors of the day had had such an effect upon poor Mr. Braggett, that for a moment he did lose all consciousness of what surrounded him. He was thankful to take advantage of the Christmas holidays, to run over to Paris with his wife, and try to forget, in the many marvels of that city, the awful fear that fastened upon him at the mention of anything connected with home. He might be enjoying himself to the top of his bent; but directly the remembrance of Charlotte Cray crossed his mind, all sense of enjoyment vanished, and he trembled at the mere thought of returning to his business, as a child does when sent to bed in the dark.
He tried to hide the state of his feelings from Mrs. Braggett, but she was too sharp for him. The simple, blushing Emily Primrose had developed, under the influence of the matrimonial forcing-frame, into a good watch-dog, and nothing escaped her notice.
Left to her own conjecture, she attributed his frequent moods of dejection to the existence of some other woman, and became jealous accordingly. If Siggy did not love her, why had he married her? She felt certain there was some other horrid creature who had engaged his affections and would not leave him alone, even now that he was her own lawful property. And to find out who the “horrid creature” was became Mrs. Emily’s constant idea. When she had found out, she meant to give her a piece of her mind, never fear! Meanwhile Mr. Braggett’s evident distaste to returning to business only served to increase his wife’s suspicions. A clear conscience, she argued, would know no fear. So they were not a happy couple, as they set their faces once more towards England. Mr. Braggett’s dread of re-entering his office amounted almost to terror, and Mrs. Braggett, putting this and that together, resolved that she would fathom the mystery, if it lay in feminine finesse to do so. She did not whisper a word of her intentions to dear Siggy, you may be sure of that! She worked after the manner of her amiable sex, like a cat in the dark, or a worm boring through the earth, and appearing on the surface when least expected.
So poor Mr. Braggett brought her home again, heavy at heart indeed, but quite ignorant that any designs were being made against him. I think he would have given a thousand pounds to be spared the duty of attending office the day after his arrival. But it was necessary, and he went, like a publisher and a Briton. But Mrs. Emily had noted his trepidation and his fears, and laid her plans accordingly. She had never been asked to enter those mysterious precincts, the house of business. Mr. Braggett had not thought it necessary that her blooming loveliness should be made acquainted with its dingy, dusty accessories, but she meant to see them for herself to-day. So she waited till he had left Violet Villa ten minutes, and then she dressed and followed him by the next train to London.
Mr. Sigismund Braggett meanwhile had gone on his way, as people go to a dentist, determined to do what was right, but with an indefinite sort of idea that he might never come out of it alive. He dreaded to hear what might have happened in his absence, and he delayed his arrival at the office for half-an-hour, by walking there instead of taking a cab as usual, in order to put off the evil moment. As he entered the place, however, he saw at a glance that his efforts were vain, and that something had occurred. The customary formality and precision of the office were upset, and the clerks, instead of bending over their ledgers, or attending to the demands of business, were all huddled together at one end whispering and gesticulating to each other. But as soon as the publisher appeared, a dead silence fell upon the group, and they only stared at him with an air of horrid mystery.
“What is the matter now?” he demanded, angrily, for like most men when in a fright which they are ashamed to exhibit, Mr. Sigismund Braggett tried to cover his want of courage by bounce.
The young man called Hewetson advanced towards him, with a face the colour of ashes, and pointed towards the ground-glass doors dumbly.
“What do you mean? Can’t you speak? What’s come to the lot of you, that you are neglecting my business in this fashion to make fools of yourselves?”
“If you please, sir, she’s in there.”
Mr. Braggett started back as if he’d been shot. But still he tried to have it out.
“She! Who’s she?”
“Miss Cray, sir.”
“Haven’t I told you already that’s a lie.”
“Will you judge for yourself, Mr. Braggett?” said a grey-haired man, stepping forward. “I was on the stairs myself just now when Miss Cray passed me, and I have no doubt whatever but that you will find her in your private room, however much the reports that have lately reached you may seem against the probability of such a thing.”
Mr. Braggett’s teeth chattered in his head as he advanced to the ground-glass doors, through the panes of one of which there was a little peephole to ascertain if the room were occupied or not. He stooped and looked in. At the table, with her back towards him, was seated the well-known figure of Charlotte Cray. He recognised at once the long black mantle in which she was wont to drape her gaunt figure--the blue bonnet, with its dejected-looking, uncurled feather--the lank curls which rested on her shoulders--and the black-leather bag, with a steel clasp, which she always carried in her hand. It was the embodiment of Charlotte Cray, he had no doubt of that; but how could he reconcile the fact of her being there with the damp clods he had seen piled upon her grave, with the certificate of death, and the doctor’s and landlady’s assertion that they had watched her last moments?
At last he prepared, with desperate energy, to turn the handle of the door. At that moment the attention of the more frivolous of the clerks was directed from his actions by the entrance of an uncommonly pretty woman at the other end of the outer office. Such a lovely creature as this seldom brightened the gloom of their dusty abiding-place. Lilies, roses, and carnations vied with each other in her complexion, whilst the sunniest of locks, and the brightest of blue eyes, lent her face a girlish charm not easily described. What could this fashionably-attired Venus want in their house of business?
“Is Mr. Braggett here? I am Mrs. Braggett. Please show me in to him immediately.”
They glanced at the ground-glass doors of the inner office. They had already closed behind the manly form of their employer.
“This way, madam,” one said, deferentially, as he escorted her to the presence of Mr. Braggett.
Meanwhile, Sigismund had opened the portals of the Temple of Mystery, and with trembling knees entered it. The figure in the chair did not stir at his approach. He stood at the door irresolute. What should he do or say?
“Charlotte,” he whispered.
Still she did not move.
At that moment his wife entered.
“Oh, Sigismund!” cried Mrs. Emily, reproachfully, “I knew you were keeping something from me, and now I’ve caught you in the very act. Who is this lady, and what is her name? I shall refuse to leave the room until I know it.”
At the sound of her rival’s voice, the woman in the chair rose quickly to her feet and confronted them. Yes! there was Charlotte Cray, precisely similar to what she had appeared in life, only with an uncertainty and vagueness about the lines of the familiar features that made them ghastly.
She stood there, looking Mrs. Emily full in the face, but only for a moment, for, even as she gazed, the lineaments grew less and less distinct, with the shape of the figure that supported them, until, with a crash, the apparition seemed to fall in and disappear, and the place that had known her was filled with empty air.
“Where is she gone?” exclaimed Mrs. Braggett, in a tone of utter amazement.
“Where is who gone?” repeated Mr. Braggett, hardly able to articulate from fear.
“The lady in the chair!”
“There was no one there except in your own imagination. It was my great-coat that you mistook for a figure,” returned her husband hastily, as he threw the article in question over the back of the arm-chair.
“But how could that have been?” said his pretty wife, rubbing her eyes. “How could I think a coat had eyes, and hair, and features? I am sure I saw a woman seated there, and that she rose and stared at me. Siggy! tell me it was true. It seems so incomprehensible that I should have been mistaken.”
“You must question your own sense. You see that the room is empty now, except for ourselves, and you know that no one has left it. If you like to search under the table, you can.”
“Ah! now, Siggy, you are laughing at me, because you know that would be folly. But there was certainly some one here--only, where can she have disappeared to?”
“Suppose we discuss the matter at a more convenient season,” replied Mr. Braggett, as he drew his wife’s arm through his arm. “Hewetson! you will be able to tell Mr. Hume that he was mistaken. Say, also, that I shall not be back in the office to-day. I am not so strong as I thought I was, and feel quite unequal to business. Tell him to come out to Streatham this evening with my letters, and I will talk with him there.”
What passed at that interview was never disclosed; but pretty Mrs. Braggett was much rejoiced, a short time afterwards, by her husband telling her that he had resolved to resign his active share of the business, and devote the rest of his life to her and Violet Villa. He would have no more occasion, therefore, to visit the office, and be exposed to the temptation of spending four or five hours out of every twelve away from her side. For, though Mrs. Emily had arrived at the conclusion that the momentary glimpse she caught of a lady in Siggy’s office must have been a delusion, she was not quite satisfied by his assertions that she would never have found a more tangible cause for her jealousy.
But Sigismund Braggett knew more than he chose to tell Mrs. Emily. He knew that what she had witnessed was no delusion, but a reality; and that Charlotte Cray had carried out her dying determination to call at his office and his private residence, until she had seen his wife!
THE INVISIBLE TENANTS OF
RUSHMERE.
“On the banks of the Wye, Monmouthshire.--To be Let, furnished, a commodious Family Mansion, surrounded with park-like grounds. Stabling and every convenience. Only two and a-half miles from station, church, and post-office. Excellent fishing to be procured in the neighbourhood. Rent nominal to a responsible tenant.”
Such, with a few trifling additions, was the advertisement that caught my eye in the spring of 18--.
“My dear Jane,” I said, as I handed the paper over to my wife, “this, I think, is the very thing we want.”
I was a London practitioner, with a numerous family and a large circle of patients; but the two facts, though blessings in themselves, were not without their disadvantages.
The hostages which I had given to fortune had made that strenuous action which attention to my numerous patients supplied incumbent on me; but the consequent anxiety and want of rest had drawn so largely on my mental and physical resources, that there was no need for my professional brethren to warn me of the necessity of change and country air. I felt myself that I was breaking down, and had already made arrangements with a friend to take my practice for a few months, and set me at liberty to attend to my own health. And being passionately fond of fishing, and all country pleasures and pursuits, and looking forward with zest to a period of complete quiet, the residence alluded to (if it fulfilled the promise of its advertisement) appeared to be all that I could desire.
“Park-like grounds!” exclaimed my wife, with animation. “How the dear children will enjoy themselves.”
“And two and a-half miles from church or station,” I responded eagerly. “No neighbours, excellent fishing, and at a nominal rent. It sounds too good to be true.”
“Oh, Arthur! you must write, and obtain all the particulars this very day. If you put it off, some one will be sure to take the house before we have time to do so.”
“I shall go and see the city agents at once,” I replied, resolutely. “It is too rare an opportunity to be lost. Only, don’t raise your hopes too high, my dear. Advertisements are apt to be deceptive.”
But when I had seen Messrs. Quibble & Lye on the subject, it really seemed as though for once they had spoken the truth. Rushmere, the house in question, had been built and furnished for his own use by an old gentleman, who died shortly afterwards, and his heirs, not liking the situation, had placed the property in the agents’ hands for letting. The owners were wealthy, cared little for money, and had authorised the agents to let the house on any reasonable terms, and it was really a bargain to anyone that wanted it. They frankly admitted that the loneliness of the position of Rushmere was the reason of its cheapness; but when I heard the rent at which they offered to let me take it, if approved of, for three months, I was quite ready to agree with Messrs. Quibble & Lye in their idea of a bargain, and that, for those who liked solitude, Rushmere offered extraordinary advantages.
Armed with the necessary authority, I found my way down into Monmouthshire, to inspect the premises on the following day; and when I saw Rushmere, I felt still more disposed to be surprised at the opportunity afforded me, and to congratulate myself on the promptitude with which I had embraced it. I found it to be a good-sized country house, comfortably furnished, and, to all appearance, well built, standing in enclosed grounds, and on a healthy elevation; but, notwithstanding its isolated situation, I was too much a man of the world to believe, under the circumstances, that its greatest disadvantage lay in that fact. Accordingly, I peered eagerly about for damp walls, covered cesspools, unsteady joists, or tottering foundations, but I could find none.
“The chimneys smoke, I suppose?” I remarked, in a would-be careless tone, to the old woman whom I found in charge of the house, and who crept after me wherever I went.
“Chimbleys smoke, sir? Not as I knows of.”
“The roof leaks, perhaps?”
“Deary me, no. You won’t find a spot of damp, look where you may.”
“Then there’s been a fever, or some infectious disorder in the house?”
“A fever, sir? Why, the place has been empty these six months. The last tenants left at Christmas.”
“Empty for six months!” I exclaimed. “How long is it, then, since the gentleman who built it died?”
“Old Mr. Bennett, sir? He’s been dead a matter of fifteen years or more.”
“Indeed! Then why don’t the owners of the place sell it, instead of letting it stand vacant?” thought I to myself.
But I did not say so to the old woman, who was looking up in my face, as though anxious to learn what my decision would be.
“No vermin, I hope?” I suggested, as a last resource. “You are not troubled with rats or mice at night, are you?”
“Oh, I don’t sleep here at night, sir, thank heaven!” she answered in a manner which appeared to me unnecessarily energetic. “I am only employed by day to air the house, and show it to strangers. I go home to my own people at night.”
“And where do your people live?”
“Better than half a mile from here, sir, and ours is the nearest cottage to Rushmere.”
And then--apprehensive, perhaps, that her information might prove a drawback to the letting of the property--she added, quickly,--
“Not but what it’s a nice place to live in, is Rushmere, and very convenient, though a bit lonesome.”
I perfectly agreed with her, the “lonesomeness” of the situation proving no detraction in my eyes.
On my return to London I gave my wife so glowing a description of the house and its surroundings, that she urged me to conclude the bargain at once; and, in the course of a few weeks, I and my family were transplanted from the purlieus of Bayswater to the banks of the Wye. It was the middle of May when we took possession, and the country wore its most attractive garb. The children were wild with delight at being let loose in the flower-bespangled fields, and, as I watched the tributaries of the river, and perceived the excellent sport they promised me, I felt scarcely less excited than the children. Only my wife, I thought, became inoculated with some of the absurd fears of the domestics we had brought with us from town, and seemed to consider the locality more lonely and unprotected than she had expected to find it.
“It’s a charming place, Arthur,” she acknowledged, “and marvellously cheap; but it is certainly a long way from other houses. I find we shall have to send for everything to the town. Not even the country carts, with butter and poultry, seem to call at Rushmere.”
“My dear Jane, I told you distinctly that it was two and a-half miles from church or station, and you read it for yourself in the paper. But I thought we looked out for a retreat where we should run no risk of being intruded on by strangers.”
“Oh yes, of course; only there are not even any farmhouses or cottages near Rushmere, you see; and it would be so very easy for anyone to break in at night, and rob us.”
“Pooh, nonsense! What will you be afraid of next? The locks and bolts are perfectly secure, and both Dawson and I have firearms, and are ready to use them. Your fears are childish, Janie.”
But all my arguments were unavailing, and each day my wife grew more nervous, and less willing to be left alone. So much so, indeed, that I made a practice of seeing that the house fastenings were properly secured each night myself, and of keeping a loaded revolver close to my hand, in case of need. But it damped my pleasure, to find that Jane was not enjoying herself; and the country looked less beautiful to me than it had done at first. One night I suddenly awoke, to find that she was sitting up in bed, and in an attitude of expectation.
“My dear, what is the matter with you?”
“Oh, hush! I am sure that I hear footsteps on the stairs--footsteps creeping up and down.”
I listened with her, but could detect no sound whatever.
“Lie down again, Jane--it is only your imagination. Every one is fast asleep in bed.”
“I assure you, Arthur, I am not mistaken. Once they came quite near the door.”
“If so, it can only be one of the servants. You don’t wish me to get up and encounter Mary or Susan in her night-dress, do you? Consider my morals!”
“Oh no, of course not,” she replied with a faint smile; yet it was some time before she fell to sleep again.
It was not many nights before my wife roused me again with the same complaint.
“Arthur, don’t call me silly, but I am certain I heard something.”
To appease her fears, I shook off my drowsiness, and, with a lighted candle, made a tour of the house; but all was as I had left it.
Once, indeed, I imagined that I heard at my side the sound of a quick breathing; but that I knew must be sheer fancy, since I was alone.
The only circumstance that startled me was finding Dawson, the man servant, who slept on the ground floor, also awake, and listening at his door.
“What roused you, Dawson?”
“Well, sir, I can hardly say; but I fancied I heard some one going up the stairs a little while ago.”
“You heard me coming down, you mean.”
“No, sir, begging your pardon, it was footsteps going up--lighter than yours, sir. More like those of a woman.”
Yet, though I privately interrogated the female servants on the following day, I could not discover that any of them had been out of their beds; and I forbore to tell my wife what Dawson had said in corroboration of her statement.
Only I was as much annoyed as astonished when, as I finished my catechism of Mary, our head nurse, she informed me that she had made up her mind to leave our service. Mary--my wife’s right hand--who had been with us ever since the birth of our first child! The announcement took me completely aback.
“What on earth is your reason for leaving us?” I demanded angrily; for I knew what a blow her decision would be to Jane. “What have you to find fault with?”
“Nothing with you or the mistress, sir; but I can’t remain in this house. I wouldn’t stay in it a night longer, if it were possible to get away; and I do hope you and Mrs. Delamere will let me go as soon as ever you can, sir, as it will be the death of me.”
“What will be the death of you?”
“The footsteps, sir, and the voices,” she answered, crying. “I can hear them about the nurseries all night long, and it’s more than any mortal can stand--it is, indeed.”
“Are you infected with the same folly?” I exclaimed. “I see what it is, Dawson has been talking to you. I didn’t know I had such a couple of fools in my establishment.”
“Mr. Dawson has said nothing to me about nothing, sir,” she answered. “I hear what I hear with my own ears; and I wouldn’t stay a week longer in this ’aunted place, not if you was to strew the floor with golden guineas for me.”
Not possessing either the capability or the inclination to test Mary’s fidelity by the means she alluded to, and finding her determination unalterable, I gave her the desired permission to depart; only making it a stipulation that she should not tell her mistress the real reason for her leaving us, but ascribe it to bad news from home, or any other cause.
But though I could not but believe that the woman’s idiotic terrors had blinded her judgment, I was extremely surprised to find she should have been so led astray, as I had always considered Mary to possess a remarkably clear head and good moral sense. The wailing and lamentation, from both mother and children, at the announcement of her departure made me still more angry with her obstinacy and folly. But she continued resolute; and we were driven to try and secure some one to fulfil her duties from the neighbouring town. But here a strange difficulty met us. We saw several fresh, rosy-cheeked maidens, who appeared quite willing to undertake our service, until they heard where we resided, when by an extraordinary coincidence, one and all discovered that some insurmountable obstacle prevented their coming at all. When the same thing had occurred several times in succession, and Jane appeared worn out with disappointment and fatigue, the landlord of the inn where we had put up for the day appeared at the door, and beckoned me out.
“May I make bold enough to ask if you want a servant to go to Rushmere?” he inquired of me in a whisper.
“Certainly, we do. Our nurse has been obliged to leave us suddenly, and we want some one to supply her place.”
“Then you may give it up as a bad job, sir; for you’ll never get one of the country people here about to set a foot in Rushmere--not if you were to live there till the day of your death.”
“And why not?” I demanded, with affected ignorance.
“What, haven’t you heard nothing since you’ve been there, sir?”
“Heard? What should I have heard, except the ordinary noises of the household?”
“Well, you’re lucky if you’ve escaped so far,” returned the landlord, mysteriously; “but it ain’t for long. No one who lives in Rushmere lives there alone. I can tell you the whole story if you like?”
“I have no desire to listen to any such folly,” I replied, testily. “I am not superstitious, and do not believe in supernatural sights or sounds. If the people round about here are foolish enough to do so, I cannot help it; but I will not have the minds of my wife or family imbued with their nonsense.”
“Very good, sir; I hope you may be able to say as much two months hence,” said the man, civilly.
And so we parted.
I returned to Janie, and persuaded her he had told me that all the girls of that town had a strong objection to leave it, which was the reason they refused to take service in the country. I reminded her that Susan was quite competent to take charge of the whole flock until we returned to London; and it would be better after all to put up with a little inconvenience than to introduce a stranger to the nursery. So my wife, who was disappointed with the failure of her enterprise, fell in with my ideas, and we returned to Rushmere, determined to do as best we could with Susan only.
But I could not forget the landlord’s earnestness, and, notwithstanding my incredulity, began to wish we were well out of Rushmere.
For a few days after Mary’s departure we slept in peace; but then the question of the mysterious footsteps assumed a graver aspect, for my wife and I were roused from deep slumber one night by a loud knock upon the bedroom door, and springing up to answer it, I encountered, on the threshold, Dawson, pale with fright, and trembling in every limb.
“What do you mean by alarming your mistress in this way?” I inquired, angrily.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” he replied, with chattering teeth, “but I thought it my duty to let you know. There’s some one in the house to-night, sir. I can hear them whispering together at this moment; and so can you, if you will but listen.”
I advanced at once to the banisters, and certainly heard what seemed to be the sound of distant voices engaged in altercation; and, light in hand, followed by Dawson, I dashed down the staircase without further ceremony, in hopes of trapping the intruders.
But all in vain. Though we entered every room in turn, not a soul was visible.
I came to the conclusion that the whole alarm was due to Dawson’s cowardice.
“You contemptible fool, you are as chicken-hearted as a woman!” I said, contemptuously. “You hear the frogs croaking in the mere, or the wind blowing through the rushes, and you immediately conclude the house is full of thieves.”
“I didn’t say it was thieves,” the man interposed, sullenly; but I took no notice of the muttered remark.
“If you are afraid to sleep downstairs by yourself,” I continued, “say so; but don’t come alarming your mistress again, in the middle of the night, for I won’t allow it.”
The man slunk back into his room, with a reiteration that he had not been mistaken; and I returned to bed, full of complaints at having been so unnecessarily roused.
“If this kind of thing goes on,” I remarked to my wife,” I shall regret ever having set eyes on Rushmere. That a pack of silly maid-servants should see a robber in every bush is only to be expected; but how a sensible man like Dawson, and a woman of education like yourself, can permit your imagination to betray you into such foolish fears, is quite past my comprehension.”
Yet, notwithstanding my dose of philosophy, poor Jane looked so pale upon the following morning, that I was fain to devise and carry into execution a little excursion into the neighbouring country before she regained her usual composure.
Some time passed without any further disturbance, and though upon several occasions I blamed myself for having brought a family, used to a populous city like London, to vegetate in so isolated a spot as Rushmere, I had almost forgotten the circumstances that had so much annoyed me.
We had now spent a month in our temporary home. The fields and hedgerows were bright with summer flowers, and the children passed most of their time tumbling amongst the new-mown hay. Janie had once more regained courage to sit by herself in the dusk, and to rest with tolerable security when she went to bed. I was rejoicing in the idea that all the folly that had marred the pleasure of our arrival at Rushmere had died a natural death, when it was vividly and painfully recalled to my mind by its actual recurrence.
Our second girl, a delicate little creature of about six years old, who, since the departure of her nurse, had slept in a cot in the same room as ourselves, woke me up in the middle of the night by exclaiming, in a frightened, plaintive voice, close to my ear,--
“Papa! papa! do you hear the footsteps? Some one is coming up the stairs!”
The tone was one of terror, and it roused my wife and myself instantly. The child was cold, and shaking all over with alarm, and I placed her by her mother’s side before I left the room to ascertain if there was any truth in her assertion.
“Arthur, Arthur! I hear them as plainly as can be,” exclaimed my wife, who was as terrified as the child. “They are on the second landing, There is no mistake about it this time.”
I listened at the half-opened door, and was compelled to agree with her. From whatever cause they arose, footsteps were to be distinctly heard upon the staircase--sometimes advancing, and then retreating, as though afraid to venture farther; but, still, not to be mistaken for anything but the sound of feet.
With a muttered exclamation, I seized my revolver.
“Don’t be alarmed,” I said, hurriedly; “there is not the slightest occasion for it. And, whatever happens, do not venture on the landing. I shall be quite safe.”
And without further preamble, only desirous to settle the business once for all, and give the intruders on my domains a sharp lesson on the laws of meum and tuum, I sprang down the staircase. I had not stayed to strike a light; but the moon was shining blandly in at the uncurtained passage window, and the landing was as bright as day. Yet I saw no one there. The thief (if thief it were) must have already taken the alarm, and descended to the lowest regions. I fancied I could detect the same footsteps, but more distinctly marked, walk by me with a hurried, frightened movement, accompanied by a quick, sobbing breath; and, as I paused to consider what such a mystery could indicate, a pair of heavily-shod feet rushed past me, or seemed to rush, upon the stairs. I heard an angry shout commingle with a faint cry of terror below the landing whereon I stood; then, the discharge of a firearm, followed by a low groan of pain--and all was still.
Dark and mysterious though it appeared to be, I did not dream of ascribing the circumstance to any but a natural cause. But there was evidently no time for hesitation, and in another moment I had flown down the stairs, and stood in the moonlighted hall. It was empty! Chairs, table, hatstand, stood in their accustomed places; the children’s garden hats and my fishing tackle were strewn about; but of animated nature there was not a sign, of the recent scuffle not a trace!
All was quiet, calm, and undisturbed, and, as I gazed around in mute bewilderment, the perspiration stood in thick drops upon my brow and chin.
My first collected thought was for my wife and the best means by which to prevent her sharing the mystification and dread which I have no hesitation in confessing that I now experienced; but as I turned to remount the staircase, I caught sight of some dark mass lying at the further end of the passage, and going up to it, found to my surprise the body of Dawson, cold and insensible.
The explanation of the mystery was before me--so I immediately determined. The man, whom I knew to be replete with superstitious terror, imagining he heard the unaccountable noise of footsteps, had evidently supplied that which had reached my ear, and in his alarm at my approach had discharged his firearm at the supposed marauder. Pleasant for me if he had taken a better aim: So I thought as I dragged his unconscious body into his bedroom, and busied myself by restoring it to sensation.
As soon as he opened his eyes, and was sufficiently recovered to answer me, I asked,--
“What on earth made you discharge your gun, Dawson? I must take it out of your keeping, if you are so careless about using it.”
“I didn’t fire, sir.”
“Nonsense! you don’t know what you are talking about. I heard the shot distinctly as I came downstairs.”
“I am only telling you the truth, sir. There is the fowling-piece in that corner. I have not drawn the trigger since you last loaded it.”
I went up and examined the weapon. What Dawson had said was correct. It had not been used.
“Then who did fire?” I said, impatiently. “I could swear to having heard the report.”
“And so could I, sir. It was that that knocked me over.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, sir, pray take the mistress and the children away from this place as soon as possible. It’s no robbers that go up and down these stairs of nights, sir. It’s something much worse than that.”
“Dawson, if you begin to talk such folly to me, I’ll discharge you on the spot. I believe the whole lot of you have gone mad.”
“But listen to my story, sir. I had gone to bed last night, as tired as possible, and thinking of nothing but getting a good long sleep. The first thing that roused me was some one trying the handle of my door. I lay and listened to it for some time before I was fully awake, and then I thought maybe you wanted something out of my room, and was trying not to wake me; so I got out of bed and opened the door. But there was nobody there, though I fancied I heard some one breathing hard a few yards off from me. Well, I thought to myself, sir, this is all nonsense; so I came back to bed again, and lay down. But I couldn’t sleep; for directly the door was closed, I heard the footsteps again, creep, creeping along the passage and the wall, as though some one was crouching and feeling his way as he went. Then the handle of the door began to creak and turn again--I see it turn, sir, with my own eyes, backwards and forwards, a dozen times in the moonlight; and then I heard a heavier step come stumbling downstairs, and there seemed to be a kind of scuffle. I couldn’t stand it no longer, so I opened the door again; and then, as I’m a living Christian, sir, I heard a woman’s voice say ‘Father!’ with a kind of sob, and as the sound was uttered there came a report from the first landing, and the sound of a fall, and a deep groan in the passage below. And it seemed to go right through me, and curdle my blood, and I fell all of a heap where you found me. And it’s nothing natural, sir, you may take my word for it; and harm will come of your stopping in this house.”
So saying, poor Dawson, who seemed in real earnest, fell back on his pillow with a heavy sigh.
“Dawson,” I said, critically, “what did you eat for supper last night?”
“You’re never going to put down what I’ve told you, sir, to supper. I took nothing but a little cold meat, upon my word. And I was as sensible, till that shot knocked me over, as you are this moment.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you seriously believe the report of a firearm could have reached your ears without one having been discharged?”
“But didn’t you say you heard it yourself, sir?”
This knocked me over, and I did not know what to answer him. In the attempt to allay what I considered his unreasonable fear, I had forgotten my own experience in the matter. And I knew that I had heard, or imagined I heard, a shot fired, and it would be very difficult for any one to persuade me I was mistaken. Still, though I held no belief in supernatural agencies, I was an earnest student of the philosophical and metaphysical school of Germany, and acquainted with all the revealed wonders of magnetism and animal electricity. It was impossible to say whether some such effect as I have described might not have been produced upon my brain by the reflection of the fear or fancy on that of my servant; and that as he had imagined the concussion of firearms, so I might have instantaneously received the impression of his mind. It was a nice question for argument, and not one to be thought over at that moment. All my present business lay in the effort to disabuse Dawson’s mind of the reality of the shock it had received.
“I said I fancied I heard something like the report of a firearm; but as none had been fired, of course I must have been mistaken. Come, Dawson, I must go back, or Mrs. Delamere will wonder what has become of me. I conclude you are not such a coward as to be afraid to be left by yourself?”
“I never feared a man in my life, sir; but the strongest heart can’t stand up against spirits.”
“Spirits!” I exclaimed, angrily. “I wonder what on earth you will talk to me about next? Now, I’ll tell you what it is, Dawson--if I hear anything more of this, or am disturbed again at night by your folly, I’ll pack you back to London without a character. Do you understand me?”
“I understand you, sir,” the man answered, humbly; and thereupon I left him to himself.
But, as I reascended the staircase, I was not satisfied either with my own half-formed solution of the mystery, or my servant’s reception of my rebuke. He evidently would prefer dismissal to passing such another night. I could read the resolution in his face, although he had not expressed it in so many words. When I reached my wife’s room, I was still more surprised. Janie and the child lay in a profound slumber. I had expected to find both of them in a state of anxious terror to learn the meaning of the noise that was going on below; but they had evidently heard nothing. This welcome fact, however, only tended to confirm me in the belief I had commenced to entertain, of the whole circumstance being due to some, perhaps yet undiscovered, phase of brain reading, and I fell to sleep, resolved to make a deeper study of the marvels propounded by Mesmer and Kant. When I awoke, with the bright June sun streaming in at the windows, I had naturally parted with much of the impression of the night before. It is hard to associate any gloomy or unnatural thoughts with the unlimited glory of the summer’s sunshine, that streams into every nook and cranny, and leaves no shadows anywhere. On this particular morning it seemed to have cleared the cobwebs off all our brains. The child had forgotten all about the occurrence of the night. I was, as usual, ready to laugh away all ghostly fears and fancies; and even Janie seemed to regard the matter as one of little moment.
“What was the matter last night, Arthur, dear?” she asked, when the subject recurred to her memory. “I was so sleepy I couldn’t keep awake till you came up again.”
“Didn’t you hear the fearful battle I held with the goblins in the hall?” I demanded, gaily, though I put the question with a purpose--“the shots that were exchanged between us, and the groans of the defeated, as they slunk away into their haunted coal-cellars and cupboards?”
“Arthur, what nonsense! Was there any noise?”
“Well, I frightened Dawson, and Dawson frightened me; and we squabbled over it for the best part of an hour. I thought our talking might have disturbed you.”
“Indeed, it didn’t, then. But don’t mention it before Cissy, Arthur, even in fun, for she declares she heard some one walking about the room, and I want her to forget it.”
I dropped the subject; but meeting Dawson as I was smoking my pipe in the garden that afternoon, I ventured to rally him on his fright of the night before, and to ask if he hadn’t got over it by that time.
“No, sir; and I never shall,” he replied, with a sort of shiver. “And I only hope you may come to be convinced of the truth of it before it’s too late to prevent harm you may never cease to repent of.”
There was so much respectful earnestness in the man’s manner, that I could not resent his words nor laugh at them, as I had done before; and I passed by him in thoughtful silence.
What if there were more in all this than I had ever permitted myself to imagine? What if the assertions of my man-servant, the unaffected terror of my wife and child, the fears of my nurse, the evident shrinking of the old woman who had charge of the house, the opposition from the servants of the neighbouring town, combined with what I had heard myself, were not simple chimeras of the brain--fancies engendered by superstition or timidity or ignorance; but indications of a power beyond our control, the beginning and the end of which may alike remain unknown until all things are revealed? I had, with the majority of educated men, manfully resisted all temptation to believe in the possibility of spirits, of whatever grade, making themselves either seen or heard by mortal senses. I use the word “manfully,” although I now believe it to be the height of manliness to refuse to discredit that which we cannot disprove, and to have sufficient humility to accept the belief that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. But at that juncture I should have considered such a concession both childish and cowardly. Yet, there was sufficient doubt in my mind, notwithstanding the glorious June sun, respecting my adventure of the night before, that I resolved, whatever happened, that I would satisfy myself as to the value of the fears of those about me.
I could not keep my wife and children in a house where they might be liable at any moment to be frightened out of their seven senses, from whatever cause, without ascertaining the reason of it. Some reason there must be, either natural or otherwise; and I determined, if possible, to learn it that very night. I would not tell Dawson or anyone of my intention; but I would keep watch and ward in the old parlour on the ground floor, so as to be ready to rush out at a moment’s notice, and seize any intruder who might attempt to disturb us. I still believed--I could not but believe--that the footsteps which so many of us had heard were due to some trickster, who wished to play upon our nerves in that lonely old house. I had heard of such things being done, purposely to keep visitors away; and I determined, whosoever it might be, whether our own servants or strangers, that they must take their chance of being shot down like any other robber.
According to my resolution, I said nothing to Janie, but tried to render the evening as cheerful and merry a one as possible.
I ordered strawberries and cream into the hayfield, and played with my troop of little ones there, until they were so tired they could hardly walk for the short distance that lay between them and their beds. As soon as they were dismissed, and we had returned to the house, I laid aside the newspapers that had arrived by that morning’s post, and which I usually reserved for the evening’s delectation, and taking my wife upon my knee, as in the dear old courting days, talked to her until she had forgotten everything but the topics on which we conversed, and had no time to brood upon the coming night, and the fears it usually engendered. Then, as a last duty, I carried to Dawson with my own hands a strong decoction of brandy and water, with which I had mixed something that I knew, under ordinary circumstances, must make him sleep till daylight.
“Drink this,” I said to him. “From whatever cause, our nerves were both shaken last night, and a little stimulant will do neither of us harm.”
“Thank you, sir,” he replied, as he finished the tumbler at a draught; “I don’t deny I’m glad to have it. I dread the thoughts of the night before us.”
“Lock your door on the inside,” I added as I left him, “and don’t get up whether the handle moves or not. Then, at all events, you will feel secure till the morrow.”
“Keys won’t keep them out,” muttered Dawson, as he entered his sleeping apartment.
But I would not notice the allusion, though I understood it.
I went up to bed with my wife as usual; and it was not until I saw she was sound asleep that, habited in my dressing-gown and slippers, I ventured to creep softly out of the room and take my way downstairs again.
It was then about twelve o’clock. The moonlight was as bright as it had been the night before, and made every object distinctly visible. From the loud snoring which proceeded from Dawson’s room, I concluded that my opiate had taken due effect, and that I should be permitted to hold my vigil undisturbed. In one hand I grasped a loaded revolver, and in the other a huge knotted stick, so determined was I not to be taken by my tormentors at a disadvantage. I turned into the general sitting-room, which opened on the hall. All was as we had left it; and I ensconced myself on one of the large old-fashioned sofas, trusting to my curiosity to keep me awake.
It was weary waiting. I heard one and then two sound from the big clock in the hall; still there was no other noise to break the silence. I began to relapse into my first belief that the whole business was due to imagination. From this I passed to self-satisfaction; self-satisfaction induced inertion, and inertion brought on heavy sleep. How long I slept I do not know, but I had reason afterwards to think, not more than half-an-hour.
However, that point is immaterial. But what waked me--waked me so completely that in a moment all my faculties were as clear as daylight--was the sound of a hoarse breathing. I sat up on the sofa and rubbed my eyes.
The room was fully lighted by the moon. I could see into each corner. Nothing was visible. The sound I had heard must then have proceeded from outside the door, which was open; and I turned towards it, fully expecting to see Dawson enter in a somnambulistic condition, brought on by his dreams and my soporific.
But he did not appear. I rose and looked into the hall. It was empty, as before. Still the breathing continued, and (as I, with now fully-awakened faculties, discovered) proceeded from a corner of the parlour where stood an old-fashioned secretary and a chair. Not daring to believe my senses, I advanced to the spot and listened attentively. The sound continued, and was unmistakably palpable. The breathing was hoarse and laboured, like that of an old man who was suffering from bronchitis or asthma. Every now and then it was interrupted by a short, roupy cough. What I suffered under this mysterious influence I can hardly tell. Interest and curiosity got the better of my natural horror; but even then I could not but feel that there was something very awful in this strange contact of sound without sight. Presently my eyes were attracted by the chair, which was pushed, without any visible agency, towards the wall. Something rose--I could hear the action of the feet. Something moved--I could hear it approaching the spot where I stood motionless. Something brushed past me, almost roughly--I could feel the contact of a cloth garment against my dressing-gown, and heard the sound of coarsely shod feet leaving the room. My hair was almost standing on end with terror; but I was determined to follow the mystery to its utmost limits, whether my curiosity were satisfied by the attempt or not.
I rushed after the clumping feet into the hall; and I heard them slowly and painfully, and yet most distinctly, commence to toil up the staircase. But before they had reached the first landing, and just as I was about to follow in their wake, my attention was distracted by another sound, which appeared to be close at my elbow--the sound of which Dawson had complained the night before--that of a creeping step, and a stifled sobbing, as though a woman were feeling her way along the passage in the dark. I could discern the feeble touch as it felt along the wall, and then placed an uncertain hold upon the banisters--could hear the catching breath, which dared not rise into a cry, and detect the fear which caused the feet to advance and retreat, and advance a little way again, and then stop, as though dread of some unknown calamity overpowered every other feeling. Meanwhile, the clumping steps, that had died away in the distance, turned, and appeared to be coming downstairs again. The moon streamed brightly in at the landing window. Had a form been visible, it would have been as distinctly seen as by day. I experienced a sense of coming horror, and drew back in the shadow of the wall. As the heavy footsteps gained the lower landing, I heard a start--a scuffle--a faint cry of “Father!” and then a curse--the flash of a firearm--a groan--and I remember nothing more.
When I recovered my consciousness, I was lying on the flat of my back in the passage, as I had found poor Dawson the night before, and the morning sun was shining full upon my face. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and tried to remember how I had come there. Surely the moon had looked in at that window when I saw it last. Then in a moment came back upon my mind all that I had heard whilst holding my vigil during the past night; and I sprang to my feet, to see if I could discover any traces of the tragedy which seemed to have been enacted in my very presence.
But it was in vain I searched the parlour, the passage, and the stairs. Everything remained in its usual place. Even the chair, which I could swear I saw pushed against the wall, was now standing primly before the secretary, and the door of the room was closed, as it usually was when we retired for the night. I slunk up to my dressing-room, anxious that my wife should not discover that I had never retired to rest; and having plunged my head and face into cold water, took my way across the sunlighted fields, to see if the fresh morning air might not be successful in clearing away the confusion with which my brain was oppressed. But I had made up my mind on one point, and that was that we would move out of Rushmere as soon as it was possible to do so. After a stroll of a couple of hours, I re-approached the house. The first person I encountered was the under nurse, Susan, who ran to meet me with a perturbed countenance.
“Oh, sir, I’m so thankful you’ve come back! Dawson has been looking for you for the last hour, for poor missus is so ill, and we don’t know what on earth to do with her.”
“Ill! In what way?” I demanded quickly.
“That’s what we can’t make out, sir. Miss Cissy came up crying to the nursery, the first thing this morning, to tell me that her mamma had tumbled out of bed, and wouldn’t speak to her; and she couldn’t find her papa. So I ran downstairs directly, sir; and there I found my mistress on the ground, quite insensible, and she hasn’t moved a limb since.”
“Good heavens!” I inwardly exclaimed, as I ran towards the house, “is it possible she can have been affected by the same cause?”
I found Janie, as the nurse had said, unconscious; and it was some time before my remedies had any effect on her. When she opened her eyes, and understood the condition she had been in, she was seized with such a fit of nervous terror that she could do nothing but cling to me, and entreat me to take her away from Rushmere.
Remembering my own experience, I readily promised her that she should not sleep another night in the house if she did not desire it. Soothed by my words, she gradually calmed down, and was at last able to relate the circumstance which had so terrified her.
“Did you sleep in my room last night, dear Arthur?” she asked, curiously.
“I did not. But since you awoke, you surely must have been aware of my absence.”
“I know nothing, and remember nothing, except the awful horror that overpowered me. I had gone to sleep very happy last night, and none of my silly fears, as you have called them, ever entered my head. Indeed, I think I was in the midst of some pleasant dream, when I was awakened by the sound of a low sobbing by the bedside. Oh, such a strange, unearthly sobbing” (with a shudder). “I thought at first it must be poor little Cissy, who had been frightened again, and I put out my hand to her, saying,--
“‘Don’t be afraid, dear. I am here.’
“Directly, a hand was placed in mine--a cold, damp hand, with a deathlike, clayey feel about it that made me tremble. I knew at once it was not the child’s hand, and I started up in bed, exclaiming,--
“‘Who are you?’
“The room was quite dark, for I had pinned my shawl across the blind to keep the moon out of my eyes before I went to bed, and I could distinguish nothing. Yet still the cold, damp hand clung to mine, and seemed to strike the chill of death into my very bones. When I said, ‘Who are you?’ something replied to me. I cannot say it was a voice. It was more like some one hissing at me through closed teeth, but I could distinguish the name ‘Emily.’
“I was so frightened, Arthur, I did not know what to do. I wrenched my hand away from the dead hand. You were not there, and I called out loudly. I would have leaped out of bed, but that I heard the creeping footsteps, accompanied by the sobbing breath, go round the room, crying, ‘Father, father!’
“My blood seemed to curdle in my veins. I could not stir until it was gone. I heard it leave the room distinctly, although the door was never opened, and walk upon the landing as though to go downstairs. I was still sitting up in bed listening--listening--only waiting till the dreadful thing had quite gone away, to seek your presence, when I heard a heavy step clumping downstairs, then the report of a gun. I don’t know what I thought. I remember nothing that followed; but I suppose I jumped out of bed with the intention of finding you, and fainted before I could reach the dressing-room. Oh, Arthur! what was it? What is it that haunts this house, and makes even the sunshine look as gloomy as night? Oh, take us away from it, or I am sure that something terrible will happen!”
“I will take you away from it, my dear. We will none of us sleep another night beneath its roof. What curse hangs over it, I cannot tell; but whether the strange sounds we have heard proceed from natural or supernatural causes, they alike render Rushmere no home for us. We will go to the hotel at ---- this very day, Janie, and deliver up the keys of Rushmere again to Messrs. Quibble & Lye.”
I then related to her my own experience, and that of Dawson; and though she trembled a little whilst listening to me, the idea of leaving the place before nightfall rendered the heavy fear less alarming than it would otherwise have been.
The servants, upon learning the resolution we had arrived at, were only too ready to help us to carry it out. Our personal possessions were packed in an incredibly short time, and we sat down that evening to a comfortable family dinner in the good old-fashioned inn at ----. As soon as the meal was concluded, and the children sent to bed, I said to my wife,--
“Janie, I am going to ring for the landlord, to see if he can throw any light on the cause of our experiences. I never told you that, when we came to this inn to try for a nurse to supply Mary’s place, he informed me that nobody from his country-side would live at Rushmere; and asked me, in a manner which assured me he could have said more if he had chosen, if we had not heard anything whilst there. I laughed at the question then, but I do not feel so disposed to laugh at it now; and I am going to beg him to tell me all he may know. If nothing more, his story may form the stratum of a curious psychological study. Would you like to be present at our interview?”
“Oh yes, Arthur; I have quite recovered my nerves since I’ve lost sight of Rushmere, and I feel even curious to learn all I can upon the subject. That poor, sobbing voice that whispered ‘Emily’--I shall not forget its sound to my dying day.”
“Ring the bell, dear, and let us ask if the landlord is at leisure. To my mind, your experience of the details of this little tragedy appears the most interesting of all.”
The landlord, a Mr. Browser, entered at once; and as soon as he heard my request, made himself completely at home with us.
“After the little rebuff you gave me t’other day, I shouldn’t have ventured to say nothing, sir; but when I see your family getting out of the fly this afternoon, I says to Mrs. Browser, ‘If that don’t mean that they can’t stand Rushmere another night, I’m a pumpkin.’ And I suppose, now, it did mean it, sir?”
“You are quite right, Mr. Browser. The noises and voices about the house have become so intolerable, that it is quite impossible I can keep my family there. Still, I must tell you that, though I have been unable to account for the disturbances, I do not necessarily believe they are attributable to spirits. It is because I do not believe so that I wish to hear all you may be able to tell us, in order, if possible, to find a reason for what appears at present to be unreasonable.”
“Well, sir, you shall hear, as you say, all we have to tell you, and then you can believe what you like. But it ain’t I as can relate the story, sir. Mrs. Browser knows a deal more than I do; and with your leave, and that of this good lady here, I’ll call her to give you the history of Rushmere.”
At this information, we displayed an amount of interest that resulted in a hasty summons for Mrs. Browser. She was a fat, fair woman, of middle age, with ruddy cheeks, and a clear blue eye--not at all like a creature haunted by her own weak imagination, or who would be likely to mistake a shadow for a substance. Her appearance inspired me with confidence. I trusted that her relation might furnish me with some clue to the solution of the occurrences that had so confounded us. Safe out of the precincts of Rushmere, and with the lapse of twelve hours since the unaccountable swoon I had been seized with, my practical virtues were once more in the ascendant, and I was inclined to attribute our fright to anything but association with the marvellous.
“Be I to tell the story from the beginning, Browser?” was the first sentence that dropped from Mrs. Browser’s lips.
Her lord and master nodded an affirmative, whereupon she began:--
“When the gentleman as built Rushmere for his own gratification, sir, died, the house let well enough. But the place proved lonely, and there was more than one attempt at robbery, and people grew tired of taking it. And above all, the girls of the village began to refuse to go to service there. Well, it had been standing empty for some months, when a gentleman and his wife came to look after it. Browser and I--we didn’t own this inn at that time, you will understand, sir, but kept a general shop in the village, and were but poorly off altogether, although we had the post-office at our place, and did the best business thereabouts. The key of Rushmere used always to be left in our keeping, too, and our boy would go up to show folks over the house. Well, one damp autumn day--I mind the day as if ’twere yesterday, for Browser had been ailing sadly with the rheumatics for weeks past, and not able to lift his hand to his head--this gentleman and lady, who went by the name of Greenslade, came for the keys of Rushmere. I remember thinking Mr. Greenslade had a nasty, curious look about his eyes, and that his wife seemed a poor, brow-beaten creature; but that was no business of mine, and I sent Bill up with them to show the house. They took it, and entered on possession at once; and then came the difficulty about the servants. Not a soul would enter the place at first. Then a girl or two tried it, and came away when their month was up, saying the house was so lonesome, they couldn’t sleep at nights, and the master was so queer-spoken and mannered, they were afraid of him.”
“Don’t forget to say what he was used to do at nights,” here put in the landlord.
“La, Browser, I’m a-coming to it. Everything in its time. Well, sir, at last it came to this, that Mrs. Greenslade hadn’t a creature to help her in anythink, and down she came to ask if I would go to them for a few days. I stared; for there was the shop to be tended, and the post-office looked after, and I hadn’t been used to odd jobs like that. But my husband said that he could do all that was wanted in the business; and we were very hard drove just then, and the lady offered such liberal pay, he over-persuaded me to go, if only on trial. So I put my pride in my pocket, and went out charing. I hadn’t been at Rushmere many days, sir, before I found something was very wrong there. Mr. Greenslade hardly ever spoke a word, but shut himself up in a room all day, or went mooning about the fields and common, where he couldn’t meet a soul; and as for the poor lady, la! my heart bled for her, she seemed so wretched and broken-down and hopeless. I used often to say to her--
“‘Now, ma’am, do let me cook you a bit of something nice, for you’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, and you’ll bring yourself down to death’s door at this rate.’
“And she’d answer,--
“‘No, thank you, Mrs. Browser: I couldn’t touch it. I feel sometimes as if I’d never care to eat or drink again.’
“And Mr. Greenslade, he was just as bad. They didn’t eat enough to keep a well-grown child between the two of them.”
“What-aged people were they?” I asked.
“Well, sir, I can hardly say; they weren’t young nor yet old. Mr. Greenslade, he may have been about fifty, and his lady a year or two younger; but I never took much count of that. But the gentleman looked much the oldest of the two, by reason of a stoop in his shoulders and a constant cough that seemed to tear his chest to pieces. I’ve known him shut himself up in the parlour the whole night long, coughing away fit to keep the whole house awake. And his breathing, sir--you could hear it half a mile off.”
“He was assmatical, poor man! that’s where it was,” interposed Mr. Browser.
“Well, I don’t know what his complaint was called, Browser; but he made noise enough over it to wake the dead. But don’t you go interrupting me no more after that fashion, or the gentleman and lady will never understand the half of my story, and I’m just coming to the cream of it.”
“I assure you we are deeply interested in what you are telling us,” I said, politely.
“It’s very good of you to compliment me, sir, but I expect it will make matters clearer to you by-and-by. You’re not the first tenants of Rushmere I’ve had to tell this tale to, I can tell you, and you won’t be the last, either. One night, when I couldn’t sleep for his nasty cough, and lay awake, wishing to goodness he’d go to bed like a Christian, I made sure I heard footsteps in the hall, a-creeping and a-creeping about like, as though some one was feeling their way round the house. ‘It can’t be the mistress,’ I thought, ‘and maybe it’s robbers, as have little idea the master’s shut up in the study.’ So I opened the door quickly, but I could see nothing.”
“Exactly my own experience,” I exclaimed.
“Ah, sir, maybe; but they weren’t the same footsteps, poor dear. I wish they had been, and she had the same power to tread now she had then. The hall was empty; but at the same time I heard the master groaning and cursing most awful in the parlour, and I went into my own room again, that I mightn’t listen to his wicked oaths and words. I always hated and distrusted that man from the beginning. The next day I mentioned I had heard footsteps, before ’em both, and the rage Mr. Greenslade put himself into was terrible. He said no robbers had better break into his house, or he’d shoot them dead as dogs. Afterwards his wife came to me and asked me what sort of footsteps they seemed; and when I told her, she cried upon my neck, and begged me if I ever heard a woman’s step to say nothing of it to her husband.
“‘A woman’s step, ma’am,’ I replied; ‘why, what woman would dare break into a house?’
“But she only cried the more, and held her tongue.
“But that evening I heard their voices loud in the parlour, and there was a regular dispute between them.
“‘If ever she could come, Henry,’ Mrs. Greenslade said, ‘promise me you won’t speak to her unless you can say words of pity or of comfort.’
“‘Pity!’ he yelled, ‘what pity has she had for me? If ever she or any emissary of hers should dare to set foot upon these premises, I shall treat them as house-breakers, and shoot them down like dogs.’
“‘Oh no! Henry, no!’ screamed the poor woman; ‘think who she is. Think of her youth, her temptation, and forgive her.’
“‘I’ll never forgive her--I’ll never own her,’ the wretch answered loudly; ‘but I’ll treat her, or any of the cursed crew she associates with, as I would treat strangers who forced their way in to rob me by night. ’Twill be an evil day for them when they attempt to set foot in my house.’
“Well, sir, I must cut this long story short, or you and your good lady will never get to bed to-night.
“The conversation I had overheard made me feel very uncomfortable, and I was certain some great misfortune or disgrace had happened to the parties I was serving; but I didn’t let it rest upon my mind, till a few nights after, when I was wakened up by the same sound of creeping footsteps along the passage. As I sat up in bed and listened to them, I heard the master leave the parlour and go upstairs. At the same moment something crouched beside my door, and tried to turn the handle; but it was locked, and wouldn’t open. I felt very uneasy. I knew my door stood in the shadow, and that whoever crouched there must have been hidden from Mr. Greenslade as he walked across the hall. Presently I heard his footsteps coming downstairs again, as though he had forgotten something. He used to wear such thick boots, sir, you might hear his step all over the house. His loaded gun always stood on the first landing; when he reached there he stopped, I suppose it was his bad angel made him stop. Anyway, there was a low cry of ‘Father, father!’--a rush, the report of the gun, a low groan, and then all was still.
“La! sir, I trembled so in my bed, you might have seen it shake under me.”
“I’ve seen it shake under you many a time,” said Browser.
“Perhaps you would like to tell the lady and gentleman my exact weight, though I don’t see what that’s got to do with the story,” replied his better half, majestically.
“I don’t think I should ever have had the courage to leave my room, sir, unless I had heard my poor mistress fly down the staircase, with a loud scream. Then I got up, and joined her. Oh, it was an awful sight! There, stretched on the floorcloth, lay the dead body of a young girl; and my mistress had fainted dead away across her, and was covered with the blood that was pouring from a great hole in her forehead. On the landing stood my master, white as a sheet, and shaking like an aspen leaf.
“‘So, this is your doing!’ I cried, angrily. ‘You’re a nice man to have charge of a gun. Do you see what you’ve done? Killed a poor girl in mistake for a robber, and nearly killed your wife into the bargain. Who is this poor murdered young creature? Do you know her?’
“‘Know her!’ he repeated, with a groan. ‘Woman, don’t torture me with your questions. She is my own daughter!’
“He rushed upstairs as he spoke, and I was in a nice quandry, left alone with the two unconscious women. When my poor mistress woke up again, she wanted me to fetch a doctor; but it would have been of no use. She was past all human help.
“We carried the corpse upstairs between us, and laid it gently on the bed. I’ve often wondered since where the poor mother’s strength came from, but it was lent her for the need. Then, sitting close to me for the remainder of the night, she told me her story--how the poor girl had led such an unhappy life with her harsh, ill-tempered father, that she had been tempted into a foolish marriage by the first lover that offered her affection and a peaceful home.
“‘I always hoped she would come back to us,’ said Mrs. Greenslade, ‘for her husband had deserted her, leaving her destitute; and yet, although she knew how to enter the house unobserved, I dreaded her doing so, because of her father’s bitter enmity. Only last night, Mrs. Browser, I awoke from sleep, and fancied I heard a sobbing in my room. I whispered, “Who is there?” And a voice replied “Emily!” But I thought it was a dream. If I had known--if I had but known!’
“She lay so quiet and uncomplaining on my knee, only moving now and then, that she frightened me; and when the morning broke, I tried to shift her, and said,--
“‘Hadn’t I better go and see after the master, ma’am?’
“As I mentioned his name, I could see the shudder that ran through her frame, but she motioned me away with her hand.
“I went upstairs to a room Mr. Greenslade called his dressing-room, and where I guessed he’d gone; and you’ll never believe, sir, the awful sight as met my eyes. I didn’t get over it for a month--did I, Browser?”
“You haven’t got over it to this day, I’m sometimes thinking, missus.”
“That means I’m off my head; but if it wasn’t for my head, I wonder where the business would go to. No, sir--if you’ll believe me, when I entered the room, there was the old man dead as mutton, hanging from a beam in the ceiling. I gave one shriek, and down I fell.”
“I don’t wonder at it,” cried Janie.
“Well, ma’am, when I came to again, all was confusion and misery. We had the perlice in, and the crowner’s inquest, and there was such a fuss, you never see. Some of Mrs. Greenslade’s friends came and fetched her away; but I heard she didn’t live many months afterwards. As for myself, I was only too glad to get back to the shop and my old man, and the first words I said to him was,--
“‘No more charing for me.’
“And now, sir, if I may make so bold, what do you think of the story?” demanded the landlord. “Can you put this and that together now?”
“It is marvellous,” I replied. “Your wife has simply repeated the scene which we have heard enacted a dozen times in Rushmere. The footsteps were a nightly occurrence.”
“I heard the voice!” exclaimed Janie, “and it whispered ‘Emily.’”
“The handle of my servant’s door was turned. The report of the gun was as distinct as possible.”
“That is what everybody says as goes to Rushmere, sir. No one can abide the place since that awful murder was committed there,” said Mrs. Browser.
“And can you account for it in any way, sir?” demanded her husband, slyly. “Do you think, now that you’ve heard the story, that the noises are mortal, or that it’s the spirits of the dead that causes them?”
“I don’t know what to think, Browser. There is a theory that no uttered sound is ever lost, but drifts as an eddying circle into space, until in course of time it must be heard again. Thus our evil words, too often accompanied by evil deeds, live for ever, to testify against us in eternity. It may be that the Universal Father ordains that some of His guilty children shall expurgate their crimes by reacting them until they become sensible of their enormity; but this can be but a matter for speculation. This story leaves us, as such stories usually do, as perplexed as we were before. We cannot tell--we probably never shall tell--what irrefragable laws of the universe these mysterious circumstances fulfil; but we know that spirit and matter alike are in higher hands than ours; and, whilst nature cannot help trembling when brought in contact with the supernatural, we have no need to fear that it will ever be permitted to work us harm.”
This little analysis was evidently too much for Mr. and Mrs. Browser, who, with a look of complete mystification on their countenances, rose from their seats, and wished us respectfully good-night; leaving Janie and me to evolve what theories we chose from the true story of the Invisible Tenants of Rushmere.
