Ghost Stories

by Bill Bowers

  As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided, Dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. The sacristan’s hands were pressed upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was telling her beads feverishly.

  At last the question was asked, “Is this book for sale?”

  There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination that he had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer, “If monsieur pleases.”

  “How much do you ask for it?”

  “I will take two hundred and fifty francs.”

  This was confounding. Even a collector’s conscience is sometimes stirred, and Dennistoun’s conscience was tenderer than a collector’s.

  “My good man!” he said again and again, “your book is worth far more than two hundred and fifty francs, I assure you—far more.”

  But the answer did not vary: “I will take two hundred and fifty francs, not more.”

  There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction, and then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, he ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him, he actually laughed or tried to laugh. Dennistoun rose to go.

  “I shall have the honour of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?” said the sacristan.

  “Oh no, thanks! It isn’t a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly, and there is a moon.”

  The offer was pressed three or four times, and refused as often.

  “Then, monsieur will summon me if—if he finds occasion; he will keep the middle of the road, the sides are so rough.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” said Dennistoun, who was impatient to examine his prize by himself; and he stepped out into the passage with the book under his arm.

  Here he was met by the daughter; she, it appeared, was anxious to do a business on her own account; perhaps, like Gehazi, to “take somewhat” from the foreigner whom her father had spared.

  “A silver crucifix and chain for the neck; monsieur would perhaps be good enough to accept it?”

  Well, really, Dennistoun hadn’t much use for these things. What did mademoiselle want for it?

  “Nothing—nothing in the world. Monsieur is more than welcome to it.”

  The tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine, so that Dennistoun was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to have the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered the father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. As he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after him, and they were still looking when he waved them a last good night from the steps of the Chapeau Rouge.

  Dinner was over, and Dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and bought an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage outside the salle à manger; some words to the effect that “Pierre and Bertrand would be sleeping in the house” had closed the conversation.

  All this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over him—a nervous reaction, perhaps, after the delight of his discovery. Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic’s treasures, in which every moment revealed something more charming.

  “Bless Canon Alberic!” said Dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of talking to himself. “I wonder where he is now? Dear me! I wish that landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one feel as if there was someone dead in the house. Half a pipe more, did you say? I think perhaps you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is that the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose. Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one’s neck—just too heavy. Most likely her father has been wearing it for years. I think I might give it a clean-up before I put it away.”

  He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brain with their own incalculable quickness.

  “A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A large spider? I trust to goodness not—no. Good God! A hand like the hand in that picture!”

  In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving sharply downward and forward, grey, horny, and wrinkled.

  He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at his heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin—what can I call it?—shallow, like a beast’s; teeth showed behind the black lips; there was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy life which shone there, were the most horrifying features in the whole vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them—intelligence beyond that of a beast, below that of a man. The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do? What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said, but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous pain.

  Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in, saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him that night, and his two friends were at St. Bertrand by nine o’clock next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.

  Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretence, and had listened with the deepest interest to the story detailed by the landlady. He showed no surprise.

  “It is he—it is he! I have seen him myself,” was his only comment; and to questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: “Deux fois je l’ai vu; mille fois je l’ai senti.” [Twice I have seen him. A thousand times I have felt him.] He would tell them nothing of the provenance of the book, nor any details of his experiences. “I shall soon sleep, and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?” he said.

  We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauléon suffered. At the back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing, which may suppose to throw light on the situation:

  Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno.

  Albericus de Mauleone delineavit.

  V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat.

  Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator,

  intercede pro me miserrimo.

  Primum uidi nocte 12mi Dec. 1694: uidebo mox

  ultimum. Peccaui et passus sum, plura adhuc

  passurus. Dec. 29, 1701.

  I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun’s view of the events I have narrated. He quoted to me once a text from Ecclesiasticus: “Some spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay on sore strokes.” On another occasion he said, “Isaiah was a very sensible man; doesn’t he say something about night monsters living in the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present.”<
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  Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with it. We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic’s tomb. It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large wig and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw Dennistoun talking for some time with the Vicar of St. Bertrand’s, and as we drove away he said to me: “I hope it isn’t wrong; you know I am a Presbyterian—but I—I believe there will be ‘saying of Mass and singing of dirges’ for Alberic de Mauléon’s rest.” Then he added, with a touch of the Northern British in his tone, “I had no notion they came so dear.”

  The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.

  He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St. Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father’s “obsession.”

  The dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by Alberic de Mauléon. Versicle.

  O Lord, make haste to help me. Psalm. Whoso dwelleth (xci).

  Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy.

  I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694; soon I shall see it for the last time.

  I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet.

  DECEMBER 29, 1701

  The Gallia Christiana gives the date of the Canon’s death as December 31, 1701, “in bed, of a sudden seizure.” Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.

  23

  A True Story

  By Benjamin Disraeli

  SIR,—WHEN I WAS A YOUNG BOY, I HAD DELICATE HEALTH, AND WAS somewhat of a pensive and contemplative turn of mind; it was my delight in the long summer evenings to slip away from my noisy and more robust companions, that I might walk in the shade of a venerable wood, my favourite haunt, and listen to the cawing of the old rooks, who seemed as fond of this retreat as I was.

  One evening I sat later than usual, though the distant sound of the cathedral clock had more than once warned me to my home. There was a stillness in all nature that I was unwilling to disturb by the least motion. From this reverie I was suddenly startled by the sight of a tall, slender female who was standing by me, looking sorrowfully and steadily in my face. She was dressed in white, from head to foot, in a fashion I had never seen before; her garments were unusually long and flowing, and resulted as she glided through the low shrubs near me as if they were made of the richest silk. My heart beat as if I were dying, and I knew not that I could have stirred from the spot; but she seemed so very mild and beautiful, I did not attempt it. Her pale brown hair was braided round her head, but there were some locks that strayed upon her neck; and altogether she looked like a lovely picture, but not like a living woman. I closed my eyes forcibly with my hands, and when I looked again she had vanished.

  I cannot exactly say why I did not on my return speak of this beautiful appearance, nor why, with a strange mixture of hope and fear, I went again and again to the same spot that I might see her. She always came, and often in the storm and plashing rain, that never seemed to touch or to annoy her, and looked sweetly at me, and silently passed on; and though she was so near to me, that once the wind lifted these light straying locks, and I felt them against my cheek, yet I never could move or speak to her. I fell ill, and when I recovered, my mother closely questioned me of the tall lady, of whom, in the height of my fever, I had so often spoken.

  I cannot tell you what a weight was taken from my boyish spirits when I learned that this was no apparition, but a most lovely woman; not young, though she had kept her young looks, for the grief which had broken her heart seemed to have spared her beauty.

  When the rebel troops were retreating after their total defeat, in that very wood I was so fond of, a young officer, unable any longer to endure the anguish of his wounds, sunk from his horse, and laid himself down to die. He was found there by the daughter of Sir Henry R——, and conveyed by a trusty domestic to her father’s mansion. Sir Henry was a loyalist; but the officer’s desperate condition excited his compassion, and his many wounds spoke a language a brave man could not misunderstand. Sir Henry’s daughter, with many tears, pleaded for him and pronounced that he should be carefully and secretly attended. And well she kept that promise, for she waited upon him (her mother being long dead) for many weeks, and anxiously watched for the first opening of eyes, that, languid as he was, looked brightly and gratefully upon his nurse.

  You may fancy better than I can tell you, as he slowly recovered, all the moments that were spent in reading, and low-voiced singing, and gentle playing on the lute, and how many fresh flowers were brought to one whose wounded limbs would not bear him to gather them for himself, and how calmly the days glided on in blessedness of returning health, and in that sweet silence so carefully enjoined him. I will pass by this to speak of one day, which brighter and pleasanter than others, did not seem more bright or more lovely than the looks of the young maiden, as she gaily spoke of “a little festival which (though it must bear an unworthier name) she meant really to give in honour of her guest’s recovery.” “And it is time, lady,” said he, “for that guest so tended and honoured, to tell you his whole story, and speak to you of one who will help him to thank you; may I ask you, fair lady, to write a little billet for me, which even in these times of danger I may find some means to forward?” To his mother, no doubt, she thought, as with light steps and a lighter heart she seated herself by his couch, and smilingly bade him dictate; but when he said “My dear wife,” and lifted up his eyes to be asked for more, he saw before him a pale statue, that gave him one look of utter despair, and fell—for he had no power to help her—heavily at his feet. Those eyes never truly reflected the pure soul again, or answered by answering looks the fond enquiries of her poor old father. She lived to be as I saw her,—sweet and gentle, and delicate always; but reason returned no more. She visited till the day of her death the spot where she first saw that young soldier, and dressed herself in the very clothes that he said so well became her.

  24

  The Phantom ’Rickshaw

  By Rudyard Kipling

  May no ill dreams disturb my rest,

  Nor Powers of Darkness me molest.

  —EVENING HYMN

  ONE OF THE FEW ADVANTAGES THAT INDIA HAS OVER ENGLAND IS A certain great Knowability. After five years’ service a man is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people of the non-official castes. In ten years his knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows something about, almost every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel bills.

  Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but, none the less, to-day if you belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a bear nor a black sheep all houses are open to you and our small world is very kind and helpful.

  Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon, some fifteen years ago. He meant to stay two nights only, but was knocked down by rheumatic fever, and for six weeks disorganized Polder’s establishment, stopped Polder’s work, and nearly died in Polder’s bedroom. Polder behaves as though he had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your character and misunderstand your wife’s amusements, will work themselves to the bone on your behalf if you fall sick or into serious trouble.

  Heatherlegh, the doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a hospital on his private account—an arrangement of loose-boxes for Incurables, his friends called it—but it was really a sort of fitting-up shed for craft that had bee
n damaged by stress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is a fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.

  Heatherlegh is the nicest doctor that ever was, and his invariable pre scription to all his patients is “lie low, go slow, and keep cool.” He says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justi fies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay who died under his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack in Pansay’s head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death. “Pansay went off the handle,” says Heatherlegh, “after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed itself. Over work started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him, poor devil. Write him off to the System—one man to do the work of two-and-a-half men.”

  I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when Heatherlegh was called out to visit patients and I happened to be within claim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even voice the procession of men, women, children, and devils that was always passing at the bottom of his bed. He had a sick man’s command of language. When he recovered I suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.