“All well, Smithson?”
“Fairly so, sir,” was his reply.
“Miss Stainton,” I said, turning to Alys, “if you will come now, I will take you to Mrs. Goodson. Dinner will be ready when you are, unless you prefer to have some sent up to your room.”
“Thanks,” she answered; “I will come down.”
I bowed; and seeing Mrs. Goodson coming towards us, I gave Alys into her capable charge, merely saying—
“Miss Stainton is an old friend, look after her well.”
It was about half-an-hour later when we met at the foot of the stairs—both, apparently, intent upon our own thoughts; both trying to keep up a chilly reserve, and more or less succeeding. Mrs. Goodson, so I learnt subsequently, was inclined to be censorious on the subject of my having a lady guest in the absence of what she considered a proper chaperon, possibly it was unorthodox, but so were the circumstances; moreover, I could not well explain that this visit of Miss Stainton’s was by her own desire to see if I was, to put it baldly, telling her yarns by way of clearing myself in her eyes; I could see she was only half inclined to believe me in my denial of going to her studio and behaving strangely; I was also pretty certain that she did not believe at all my story of the wretched brother’s haunting of me—to this end she had come as my guest, to prove me. I knew it, felt it in her gravely-disapproving green eyes, as she faced me during dinner. It remained to be seen whether or not anything would happen to upset the theory, which I was convinced she held, that I was either bad, or mad.
It was a farce of the first water, that tête-à-tête dinner of ours; conversation was impossible, long silences hung with oppression over us. I, at least, could not help comparing it as it was, with the might have been, if things had not gone so much awry with me.
Smithson waited upon us with much solicitude, and had just put dessert upon the table, lowered the lights round the room, leaving only the softly-shaded little lights in the centre of the table, then withdrew, with his usual manner of—
“I will put coffee in the library, sir,” and closed the door softly behind him, leaving us alone, at least, I suppose so, though I was not by any means sure.
“Will you excuse me, Mr. York?” asked Alys, rising hurriedly, as she spoke; “I—I am rather cold.”
“It is cold,” I said; “but please come for some coffee, the library will be warmer.”
“Not unless you insist,” she replied.
“I cannot, of course, insist,” I said, “but I do ask you to give me all the help you can.”
“Very well,” she murmured, “for half-an-hour I will come, but—I do not believe your tales.” I bowed in answer, as I held the door open for her to pass through, steps, other steps than hers were plainly audible.
I noticed a startled expression flit across her face, then she paused, looking at me, as if questioning. I smiled, endeavouring to be reassuring, and we crossed the dim hall side by side, her little high-heeled shoes making a click on the polished floor, my heavier tread beside her, and close behind us those other steps—unmistakable. We ignored them by tacit consent, and entered the library. I pulled the armchair close to the fire for her, heaping cushions at her back, and asked if she would pour out coffee while I got my cigarettes.
In spite of all I had gone through, I found myself hoping that the horrors might be repeated, if only to convince Alys of my truthfulness. I even felt it would be happiness if, in terror, she looked to me for help, already I knew she had heard the steps, what else might she not see, and hear. My spirits rose as I pictured her face, when she really had to believe me and knowing her generous heart, I felt it was only a matter of time ere we were once more lovers, without a cloud between us. Having possessed myself of my smokes, we sat in silence, one on either side of the fire, with the coffee tray between us. It was a unique situation, for, to all intents and purposes, we were host and guest, and yet we sat there as strangers, so far as any attempt at conversation or interest in each other went.
One hour passed in almost total silence! Uneasily, I watched her as she sat cold, immovable, each moment, as it passed, seeming to add a harder, sterner line to her pale face. Ten o’clock sounded as she rose to her feet, saying, as she looked at me with scornful eyes—
“I might have known. But I felt I must give you what appeared to be your one, chance—the chance to prove you were telling me the truth. I disregarded conventionality, I have braved the gossip that must follow me; I came to your house, and I learn nothing. Not one thing which you have put forward as your plea has happened; I do not believe in your story of haunting. I believe you to be an unscrupulous man, and I consider you have added insult to the rest of your horribleness. I refuse to see or speak to you ever again!”
In silence I held the door open for her, but as I watched her go slowly up the stairs I heard her little laugh as she spoke to Mrs. Goodson, and the laugh hurt me more than all. Perhaps I had not yet learned that women can, and do, laugh and jest with breaking hearts; laugh until none could dream that beneath the gaiety lies sorrow little dreamed of. I learned it later, but then, I believed that Alys truly felt nothing more than distrust and dislike of me, or perhaps even amusement. I returned to my chair, as sad a man as one could find, frantically cursing my brother, that he could even withhold what I needed, to help me to happiness.
I groaned aloud:“If you had shown yourself tonight, I might ever have forgiven you!” burst from my lips almost involuntarily. I was answered from the opposite chair by a low, ironical laugh! It was my last straw. I felt I could not endure anything more, so made my way to my room, determined if sleep as well as all else forsook me, I would drink until oblivion came. I, even I, who all my life had been abstemious would now drown my troubles in drink—was my mental state; and to what it would have led me, I dare not think, but for the simple fact that, as I passed the door of the room where Alys was, my steps were arrested by the sound of low sobbing, such sounds as few men could hear unmoved, and yet to me it brought a rush of joy, checking once and for all my idea of weakly drowning my trouble in drink.
I dare not knock or whisper a word, as with a full heart I went on towards my room, sure only of one thing, the laugh I had previously heard had not meant either indifference or amusement, it was, I felt sure, only to hide her real feelings, which I had discovered unwittingly, and which I must therefore ignore.
The following day, after a sleepless night, I was not awakened by Smithson until almost ten o’clock, and then he told me Miss Stainton had gone by the early tram, bidding him tell me she would write, and regretting her hasty departure. This I knew to be a polite fiction for the benefit of the household, nor did I ever receive the promised but unexpected letter.
I wrote once to the studio, but my letter was returned through the dead letter office, which seemed the ending of my brief love story. I made many attempts to discover Alys’s whereabouts from some of our mutual Bohemian friends. One and all these so-called friends ignored and finally cut me, and my life was one endless weary round of trouble.
All my staff had now left, except Smithson and Mrs. Goodson. We shut up most of the house, and I lived through days, weeks, months of brooding isolation.
Once the neighbouring clergyman called, but he was a man of narrow views, and his visits were hours of torture to me; and I think he always left me sure in his own mind that either I was mad, or that my house was possessed by evil spirits, brought there by my own evil thoughts. In my distress I asked him could he not pray and thus help me to rid myself of the persistent haunting of my brother. He listened, with a pious face of horror, as I told him a little of my story, but assured me, with a pitying smile meant to humour me, that; so far, he was not aware of anything abnormal! This was true, horribly true; my wretched brother appeared to take infinite care that nothing abnormal should occur, if ever there was anyone present likely to be of help to me.
Even Smithson, with earnest desire to help me, had on several occasions asked his crony, Constable Gill, to sm
oke a pipe with him; but, invariably, the house was silent on these occasions, except in my own rooms, and Gill would leave, believing me mad, and admiring Smithson for his assiduous care of “the poor gentleman.” And so it went on—by day, I was tormented; by night, it was even more hideous. It sounds so little as I tell it, yet imagine yourself for even one day always conscious that you were never alone.
At my meals I always heard another chair drawn up to the table, as I moved through the house those other steps kept pace with mine, at nights I was disturbed in a dozen ways, and an unusually calm day was invariably followed by a night of horror. The chilliness of my room, causing my teeth to chatter, always heralded the arrival of my wretched brother, and if, as sometimes happened, I felt resigned to my fate, and more or less inert, it was then I would not only hear him, but see him, pale, shadowy, with a mocking smile upon his lips, and always the awful mark as of a rope around his neck. I realised, to the full, now what he meant by his words to the chaplain of the prison:
“Tell my brother his life will not be a calm one, in spite of my death to spare an innocent man.”
And I knew also what I had done when I asked him to live in the house with me; that was the meaning of his mocking smile—he did dwell with me, I was never free from him. I had tried, as time went on, absence from home; I had even gone abroad; nothing availed me, so I returned where, at least, I had the material comforts of my home.
Thus, one year passed, solitary, isolated, alone, except—always except—for the company of my brother. I lived the life of a hunted animal, daily seeking sanctuary but finding none, my health undermined by days of torture and sleepless nights, all pleasure long since gone; my stables were empty, I could neither keep horses nor men in any semblance of peace; my gardens were mere wildernesses, for no man would remain to see his work mutilated and spoiled. It had even happened that when I once found a book which held my attention to the exclusion of all else for a few brief hours, that same book was removed from the table whereon I had placed it, and I found it battered, torn, illegible, on the floor.
I had resolutely kept my vow, I had not degraded myself by drink, but at last, after a severe nervous breakdown, had given Smithson the excuse he had long sought to call in a medical man. I permitted it because the local doctor, a man well known to me and my family, was, I learnt, absent from home, his place being filled for the time by a young man from London. Knowing him to be a stranger, trusting also that there had not been sufficient time for him to have heard the local version of my affairs, I permitted him to be called in. He did not stay long on the first visit, nor did he allow me to talk but left me some medicine and the assurance that it would bring me needed sleep.
It did, but it brought me more—it brought me a man to whom I could open my over-burdened heart, sure of his understanding. I asked Dr. Willis if he was not afraid of administering sleeping drugs to a man in my condition, but his repeated assurances that I must have plenty of grit to battle as I had done, heartened me, gave me confidence, and he acceded to my request to spend all his leisure with me with whole-hearted alacrity.
As usual my tortures ceased when the doctor entered, to commence again the instant the door closed behind him, but on one never-to-be-forgotten day he came prepared to spend the whole day. We lunched, and I, as ever, was at once aware that my constant visitor was close at hand, but I was surprised when Dr. Willis suddenly exclaimed—
“How cold it is, York!”
I smiled in answer, and he at once understood that we were not, as he supposed, alone! Colder and more icily chill grew the room, until our teeth chattered. At last Dr. Willis rose.
“For God’s sake, York, let’s get out of this,” burst from his lips.
“Very well,” I said, “we will try the library.”
As ever, the room looked the acme of comfort.
“Ah! this is better,” said Willis, drawing a chair nearer to the fire, sinking into it with a sigh of relief, only to spring from it with an oath, as he gasped—
“There’s someone else sitting in it.”
“Of course,” I murmured; “there usually is.”
“Man!” he said. “It is a marvel to me you are not a maniac.”
“I should be,” I replied, “save for one fact—my never slackening desire to prove to a woman, whom I love, that I am neither a maniac nor a liar!”
“You shall prove it,” he said, “for I will help you.”
As he spoke, there was a crash, splintering the mirror behind us into a thousand fragments.
“That is a mere nothing,” I assured him;“nothing is safe.”
“But,” he said, “I don’t understand.”
“Nor I,” I answered.
“I mean, I don’t understand the reason, the wherefore,” he said. “I am as hard-hearted as most men, harder than a good many, but I suppose even the hardest of us have a soft line somewhere, some dim recollection, maybe, of stories told at our mother’s knee, of angel guardians, stories of good folks who died, and went to Heaven. One reads, of course, that people claim to have seen the spirits of those departed come back to earth. I have even read of pranks played in old houses, but that any spirit can come again and carry on a systematic degraded existence, be it here or on some sphere, I can’t grasp. Where can such a being dwell, to whom practices of this kind are of the slightest satisfaction?
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I am almost as much at sea as you are, doctor. I say almost, because during these last months I have abandoned my former studies and have read and studied every book on occult matters I could lay my hands upon. There is, I find, a theory amongst certain students of the occult, to the effect that ‘the very lowest planes of the Astral world are filled with souls of a gross type—undeveloped and animal life, Who live as near as possible the lives they lived on earth. ’ Also the particular book in which I read this goes on to say—‘About the only thing they gain being the possibility of their living out their gross tastes and becoming sick and tired of it all, thus allowing them to develop a longing for Higher things. . . . these undeveloped souls cannot, of course, visit the upper planes, etc. . . . . they often flock back as near to earth as possible.’
“There is a good deal more, but something of this kind may control, so to speak, the actions of my unhappy brother. His life here was not an elevated one, his tastes and ways were of a low order, and I take it that his hurried passing from here to wherever he has gone, left him no time for either repentance or desire to become a better man. It’s a horrible theory, but I can find no other. The only chance for him and for me then, seems to be, that something will so sicken him of his present life, that he may be moved to long for some higher plane, and therefore attain it; but what must it be that will help him? and where can I turn to find it?”
The doctor shook out his pipe, and refilled it, before he spoke; then, to my amazement, he said, quietly, and in most matter-of-fact voice:
“Love might do it. You spoke of a woman you loved; there was once, long ago, such a woman in my life. She died, but the love she scattered lives on, and many people still bless her dear name. I often chided her for working too hard amongst the poor souls where my earlier work was done. She never spared herself, early and late she nursed and toiled amongst the sick; and when I would have checked her, she would answer brightly—‘We only pass this way once, let me help all I can.’ She died six months later of diphtheria, caught from a child she nursed devotedly; and if your theory is in any way correct, then there are men and women too, whose lives hereafter will be on a higher plane than they would have been, but for the example of her unswerving unselfishness, and noble aims. Can you not get this girl you love to help you?”
I answered him sadly enough, by giving him a resumé of my happy days with Alys, and my subsequent meetings and disappointments.
“She must be made to understand,” he said. “Sooner or later she must realise the truth. I will think it over, and now, ‘Goodnight’; I must leave you, although I hate to
do so.”
Left to my loneliness once more, I pondered deeply over my friend’s words—“Love might do it.” Aye, it might, if only it could! Here my reflections were broken in upon by the steady knocking, as of a hammer, on first one, then another, of the chairs or tables in the room, followed, as always, by the icy chilliness of the room. This hammering was a recent form of torture, generally occurring when I was either in deep thought or reading.
It effectually put a stop to either as a rule; but tonight, I was determined to continue the thinking-out process, so sat apparently unmoved, though fully conscious that the room grew perceptibly colder, and that the dreaded presence hovered close. I was correct in my surmise, for now, two icy hands passed themselves over my eyes, encircling, as it were, my head also in their cold grasp. The pressure was intense, as if my head was in a vice of marble coldness; the sweat began to break out on me, in awful fear, as I sat there, failing now to think at all, conscious only that in another instant I should faint or scream— tighter, tighter, grew the clasp, gradually moving lower, lower, lower, so gradually, that I did not realise at once that the vice-like grip was now over my nose.
Then my mouth and ears were covered and held, lower—and oh, God! the grasp was at my throat; tighter, tighter, that awful icy clasp; on my throat the pressure seemed now to concentrate into a tight line round my throat, as of a rope. I knew it, knew in a brief moment of horror, that it was a hangman’s rope that I was held by! Slowly I felt myself lifted, my feet no longer rested on the ground, I was suspended by the neck in mid-air. I was being hanged, though gradually, to spin out as it were a torture that would in ordinary event be swift. I felt myself gasping, choking—and knew no more.
I learnt later that Dr Willis had returned, having forgotten his pipe, and had found me rigid, cold in my chair, my collar and tie lying on the floor, and a blood-red mark round my throat. When he left the house again, he took me with him, and for some months nursed me back to life, in his own house in London, where he took me the instant the local doctor returned to his own duties. In Dr. Willis’ pretty home I recovered some of my former health; and though, at times, I was still subjected to persecution by my brother, I had help at hand, and was no longer alone to endure it.
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Bessie Kyffin-Taylor-From Out of the Silence Page 16