by Graeme Davis
He tried to settle his ideas. Of what had passed he knew but this much for certain, that he had opened the secret door.
The following morning Mr. Little summoned up his courage, and, after a great argument with himself, turned his steps toward Hotspur Hall. The day was fresh and blowy; a delicate blue haze hung over the hills, out of which, larger and larger, emerged a brilliant blue sky. In the valley the towers of Hotspur and its tall chimneys rose among the trees. Soon Mr. Little could see the bright patches of geranium on the lawn. All this, he argued with himself, must have been a delusion, a result of over-psychological study and a thunder-storm upon a nervous and poetical temperament. He tried to remember what he had read about delusions in Carpenter’s “Mental Physiology,” and about that supposed robbery, or burglary, which Shelley believed himself to have witnessed. Mr. Little couldn’t remember the details, but he was pleased it should have been Shelley. He felt quite foolish and almost happy as he passed through the rose garden, among the strawberry nets, and in at the by-entrance of Hotspur. He walked straight into the dining-room, where he knew the family was assembled at breakfast, jauntily, and one hand in his pocket. “Why, Little, where the deuce have you spent the night?” cried Sir Hugh Hotspur; and the question was echoed in various forms by the rest of the company. “Why, Little, have you been in the horse-pond?” cried young Harry, pointing to his guest’s clothes, which, drenched the previous night, did indeed suggest some such immersion. Mr. Little did not answer; he felt himself grow cold and pale, and grasped a chair-back. In making this rude remark, the heir of Hotspur had burst into a peal of laughter.
Mr. Little understood; they had found the mysterious chamber empty, its horror fled; he had really opened that door; the heir of Hotspur could still laugh. He explained automatically how he had been caught by a storm on the fells, and been obliged to pass the night at a wayside inn; but the whole time, while he pretended to be eating his breakfast, his brain was on fire with a thought—
“Where had it gone—it, the something which he had let loose?”
That night Mr. Little slept, or rather, as our ancestors more correctly expressed it, lay, at Hotspur. For the word sleep was but a mockery. There was a second storm, and all night the wind howled in the trees, the drops fell from the eaves, and the room was illumined by fitful gleams of lightning. It seemed to Mr. Little that the evil spirit, or whatever else it might be, which had once been safely locked up in the hidden chamber, was now loose in the house. On reflection he could not doubt it: when he had fallen senseless on the stairs, something had passed out of the door; he had heard and felt the wind of its passage. It had issued from the room; it must now be somewhere else, at loose, free to wreak its will with every flash of lightning. Mr. Little expected that the solid masonry of Hotspur would catch fire and burn like a match; with every crash of thunder he expected that the great peel tower would come rattling on to the roof. He realized for the first time the tales of the companions of Ulysses opening the bag of the winds; of the Arabian fisherman breaking Solomon’s seal on the flask which held the djinn; they no longer struck him as in the least ridiculous, these stories. He too had done alike. For, after all, was it not possible that there existed in Nature forces, beings, unknown to our ordinary every-day life? Did not all modem investigations point in that direction, and was it not possible, then, that by the mercy of Providence such a force or being, fatal to our weak humanity, might have been permitted to be inclosed within four walls—one family, or rather, one unhappy member of one family, being sacrificed for the good of mankind, and facing this terror alone, that the rest of his kind might not look upon that ineffable mystery? And now he, in the lawlessness of his skepticism, had stepped in and opened that sacred door. . . . He understood now why he had often felt that he was destined to commit some terrible crime.
Mr. Little sat up in bed, and as the lightning fitfully lit up the antique furniture of his room, he began mechanically to mutter some prayers of his childhood, and some Latin formulae of exorcism which he had learned at the time of his offering to do the article “Incubus” for the “Encyclopædia Britannica.” What should he do? Confess to Sir Hugh Hotspur or to Sir Hugh’s son? He felt terrified at the mere notion; but he understood that his terror was no mere vulgar fear of being reprimanded for a gross breach of hospitality and honor—that it was due to the sense that, having this terrible secret, he had no right to ruin therewith the lives of innocent men. The Hotspurs would know but too soon!
Meanwhile Mr. Little felt an imperative need to confess what he had done, to ask advice and assistance. He wished for once that he had been able to go over to Rome that time that Monsignor Tassel had tried to convert him, instead of being deterred by the oleographs* in Monsignor Tassel’s chapel. What would he not give to kneel down in a confessional, and pour out the horrible secret through the perforated brass plate!
All of a sudden he jumped out of bed, struck a light, and dragged his portmanteau into the middle of the room. He had remembered Esmé St. John, and the fact that Esmé St. John, his former chum at Oxford, was working in the slums of Newcastle, not three hours hence. How could he ever, in the lawless hardness of his heart, have thought Esmé ridiculous, have actually tried to reason him out of his High Church asceticism? This was indeed the just retribution, the fall of the proud, that he should now seek shelter and peace in Esmé’s spiritual arms, and bring to the man, nay, rather to the saint, at whom he had once scoffed, a story which he would himself have once ridiculed as the most childish piece of superstition. The mere thought of that act of humiliation did him good; and the terrors of the night seemed to diminish as Mr. Little stooped over his portmanteau and folded his clothes with neat but feverish hands. As soon as it was light, he stole out of the house, walked to the neighboring village, knocked up the half-idiotic girl who had charge of the post-office, and sent off a sixpenny telegram telling the Reverend Esmé St. John that he would join him at Newcastle that afternoon.
Mr. Little was rather surprised, and in truth rather dashed, when he met his old friend. He had spent the hours in the train framing his confession: a terrible tale to tell, yet which he felt a sudden disappointment at being prevented from telling. Prevented he did feel. He found the Reverend Esmé St. John making a round among his parishioners; they had told him so at Mr. St. John’s chapel, and he had realized vividly the whole scene; Esmé, emaciated, hollow-voiced, fresh from some death-bed, leaving the rest of his flock to follow the call of this pale creature, in whom he would scarcely recognize an old friend, and the very touch of whose band would tell him that things more terrible than death were at stake. But it was otherwise. After wandering about various black and grimy slums under the thick black Newcastle sky, and up various precipitous alleys and flights of steps strewed with egg-shells and herringheads, Mr. Little found his old friend in a back yard sheltered by the crumbling red roof of “The Musician’s Rest’’ inn (where the first bars of “Auld Lang Syne” swung over the door). By his side was a fat, tattered, but extremely jovial red-haired woman washing in a tub, and opposite, an unkempt ragamuffin with his hands in his pockets, singing at the top of his little voice a comic song in Northumbrian dialect. Mr. Esmé St. John was leaning against the doorway, laughing with all his might; he was fat, bald, had a red face, and a very humorous eye—in fact, did not resemble in the least the hollowcheeked, flashing-eyed young fanatic of ten years before. He stretched out his broad hand to Mr. Little, and said: “Do listen to this song, it’s about the Board School man—it’s really too delicious, and the little chap sings it quite nicely!”
Mr. Little listened, not understanding a word, and thinking how little this man, laughing over a foolish song sung by a street-boy, guessed the terrible confession he was about to receive.
When the song was finished, the Reverend Esmé St. John took Little’s arm, and began to overwhelm him with futile questions while leading him down the steep streets of Old Newcastle, until they got to the door of a large and gorgeous eating-house.
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“You must be hungry,” said Mr. St. John. “I’ve ordered dinner here for a treat, because my old house-keeper, although an excellent creature, does not rise above mutton chops and boiled potatoes, and one should do honor to an old friend.”
Mr. Little shook his head. “I am not hungry,” he answered, while his friend unfolded his napkin opposite him. He felt inclined to say, grimly, “When a man has let loose a mysterious unknown terror that has been locked up in Hotspur Hall for centuries, he doesn’t feel inclined for roast mutton and Bass’s beer.”
But the place, the tables, plates, napkins, the smell of cooking, stopped him, and he felt stopped also by the face—the jovial, red face—of his old friend. This was not the Esmé to whom he had longed to unbosom himself. And he felt very irritated.
Mr. Little’s irritation began to subside when he followed his friend to his lodgings.
“You asked for a bed, in your telegram,” said the Reverend Esmé St. John, as they left the eating-rooms, “and I have had a bed put in a spare room of mine, just to show my hospitable intentions. But I shan’t be the least bit offended if you prefer to go to the hotel, my dear fellow. You see, I think a clergyman, trying to reclaim the people of these slums, ought to live among his flock, and no better than they. But there is no reason why any one else should live in this crazy old barrack.”
They walked, in the twilight, along some precipitous streets, lined with tinkers’ dens and old-clothes shops, under the high-level bridge, over whose colossal span the square old castle stood out black against the sky.
Mr. Little crept through a battered wooden gateway, and picked his way among the puddles, the fallen beams, and the refuse heaps of a court-yard. A light appeared at a window.
“Here we are,” said Esmé, and they followed an old, witch-like woman, herself following a thin, black cat, up some crazy, wooden stairs, and into a suite of low, large rooms. Mr. St. John held up a lantern. The room in which they stood was utterly dismantled, the very wainscoting torn out, the ceiling gaping in rent lath and plaster. In a corner stood a bed, a crazy chest of drawers, and washing apparatus, a table, and chair; and in the next room, where the old woman’s light had preceded them, was a similar bed, a shelf of books, a large black cross nailed to the wall, and a wooden step for kneeling.
“That’s my room,” said the clergyman. “You may have it if you prefer. But here’s a fireplace in this one, so you’d better keep it.”
So saying, Mr. St. John applied a match to the faggots,† and the gaunt apartment was flooded with a red light.
“I must make some arrowroot for an old woman of mine,” said the clergyman, producing a tin can and saucepan. “May I make it on your fire?”
Mr. Little watched him in silence, then suddenly said: “Esmé, I thought at first you were changed from old days, but I see you are still a saint. Alas! I fear it is I who have changed but too sadly;” and he sighed. “You are growing too fat,” answered Mr. St. John good-humoredly, but quite missing the fact that this was the exordium of a confession. Then, to Mr. Little’s annoyance, he asked him leave to carry the arrowroot to his old woman, who lived in a lane hard by. Mr. Little remained seated by the fire, while the housekeeper (since she must be dignified by such a title) unpacked his portmanteau. Yes, indeed, this was the man to whom he could make his confession, and this was the place—this dismantled, tumble-down old mansion, tenanted now only by a few poor bargees’ families and by countless generations of rats. And Mr. Little put another piece of coal on, in preparation of the nightly conference he was about to have.
Presently Mr. St. John returned.
“Esmé,” said Mr. Little, putting his hand on his friend’s sleeve, “I wish to speak to you.”
“About what?” asked Mr. St. John. “It’s very late to begin talking.”
“About myself,” answered Mr. Little, gravely.
“Do you want anything else? Would you like some brandy and water, or another pillow? You may have mine—or an additional blanket?” asked his friend.
Mr. Little shook his head. “I have all I want in the way of material comforts.’’
“In that case,” replied the clergyman, “I shall leave you at once. If, as you imply, you want spiritual comforts, you must wait till to-morrow, for I am perfectly worn out, and have to be up to-morrow at half-past four. I’ve been nursing a man from the chemical works these five nights. Good-night!” and, taking his candle, Mr. St. John walked into his room, leaving his friend greatly disconcerted by this want of sympathy.
The following day Mr. Little accompanied his friend on one of his rounds. After visiting a number of squalid places, where Mr. Little would certainly have thought about measles and small-pox had he not been thinking about the mystery of Hotspur Hall, they returned to the row of houses, once fashionable mansions, with their fronts on the river, among which loomed, next to the black and crumbling former Town Hall, the shell of a family mansion in which they were lodged.
“This was once the fashionable part of Newcastle,” said Mr. St. John. “An old lady of ninety once told me she could remember the time when this street used to be crowded with coaches and footmen and link boys of a winter’s night. I want to show you my mission-room; I’m very proud of it.”
They entered a black passage, close to an inexpressibly shabby public-house, and ascended a wide stone staircase, unswept for ages, as was attested by the cabbage-stalks and herring-heads which lay about in various stages of decomposition. On the first landing a rope was stretched, and a line of clothes, or rather rags, drying after the wash-tub, formed a picturesque screen before several open doors, whence issued squealing of babies, grind of sewing machines, and various unsavory odors. Mr. St. John unlocked a door and admitted his friend into a large hall, gracefully decorated with pastoral stucco moldings, but filled with church seats, and whose raised extremity, suggestive of the dais for an orchestra, was occupied by an altar duly appointed according to ritualistic notions. The place smelt considerably of stale tobacco and damp straw.
“These were the former assembly rooms,” explained Mr. St. John; “and this, which is now my little chapel for the lowest scum of Newcastle slums, was once the ball-room. What would those ladies in hoops and powder think of the change, I wonder?”
Mr. Little saw his opportunity.
“This place must be haunted,” he said. “By-the-way, Esmé, what are your views on the subject of ghosts and the supernatural? I should be very interested to know.”
Mr. St. John had locked the door behind them. “Never mention the word ghost before me,” he exclaimed, “it drives me perfectly wild to see all the tomfooling that has been going on of late about apparitions, haunted houses, secret chambers, and all that blasphemous rubbish. It is really a retribution of Heaven to see you agnostic wiseacres taking up such contemptible twaddle. I’m very sorry to hear that you have been in correspondence with those people, Little.”
“But—” objected Mr. Little.
“No buts for me!” cried the Reverend Esmé St. John, hotly; “I can not conceive how any man of education and character can fiddle-faddle about idiotic superstitions which it is the duty of every Christian and every gentleman to pluck out of the minds of the vulgar.”
It was clear that this was not the moment to begin a confession about the mysterious room at Hotspur.
“How surprised he will be,” thought Mr. Little (and a vague sense of satisfaction mingled with the horror of the thought), “when he hears that I, even I, the skeptical, antinomian Little, have come in contact with mysteries more strange and awful than any ever examined into by any society for psychical research.”
Despite his old friend’s want of sympathy, Mr. Decimus Little continued to lodge with the Reverend Esmé St. John, in the grimy and crumbling old mansion by the Tyneside, following him about on his various errands of mercy. “A man situated like me,” Mr. Little had said to himself, “a great sinner (if you like the pious formula of former ages), a character predestined to evil (if you
prefer the more modern phraseology of determinism), does well to live in the shadow of a truly good man: his saintliness is a bulwark against evil spirits; or, at all events, the sight of perfect serenity and purity of mind must calm a deeply troubled spirit.” Indeed, he more than once began to make this remark, in terms even more subtle, to his friend; but Mr. St. John, whether from fear of Mr. Little’s dialectic power, which might shake some of his most cherished beliefs, or from some other reason, invariably turned a deaf ear to all such beginnings of confession.
But either the serenity of the ritualistic philanthropist was inadequate to calm a brain so over-excited or the evil spirits let loose by Mr. Little made short work of the bulwarks of Esmé’s saintliness. The thought of that opened door began to haunt him like a nightmare: the effort at guessing what had been liberated when that door was opened wore out his energies. Was it a monster—a poor, loathsome, half-human thing, hiding, perhaps lying starving at this moment, in some corner of the castle: a thing without mind, or speech, or shape, but endowed with monstrous strength, starting forth in the night and throttling the unrightful owner or his young children with stupid glee? Or, more horrible almost, forcing by its presence that honorable and kindly old man into crime; tempting him, with the fear lest this hideousness should become known to the world, into spilling the blood of what seemed but a loathly reptile, but might be his third cousin, or his great-uncle? Mr. Little buried his face in his pillow at the thought. But it might be worse still—in that room might have been inclosed some ghastly mediaeval plague, some crumbling long-dead corpse, whose every particle was ready to take wing and spread forgotten diseases over the country. Or was it something less tangible, less conceivable—a ghost, a demon, some fearful supernatural evil?