Night Terrors

by E. F. Benson

  The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the first half of his horrid anticipations was thoroughly fulfilled. The heavy wheels passed over him from head to foot and flattened him completely out. Then the driver (too late) reversed his engine and passed over him again, and finally lost his head, whistled loudly and stopped. The policeman on duty at the corner turned quite faint at the sight of the catastrophe, but presently recovered sufficiently to hold up the traffic, and ran to see what on earth could be done. It was all so much ‘up’ with Mr Tilly that the only thing possible was to get the hysterical engine-driver to move clear. Then the ambulance from the hospital was sent for, and Mr Tilly’s remains, detached with great difficulty from the road (so firmly had they been pressed into it), were reverently carried away into the mortuary . . .

  Mr Tilly during this had experienced one moment’s excruciating pain, resembling the severest neuralgia as his head was ground beneath the wheel, but almost before he realised it, the pain was past, and he found himself, still rather dazed, floating or standing (he did not know which) in the middle of the road. There had been no break in his consciousness; he perfectly recollected slipping, and wondered how he had managed to save himself. He saw the arrested traffic, the policeman with white wan face making suggestions to the gibbering engine-driver, and he received the very puzzling impression that the traction engine was all mixed up with him. He had a sensation of red-hot coals and boiling water and rivets all around him, but yet no feeling of scalding or burning or confinement. He was, on the contrary, extremely comfortable, and had the most pleasant consciousness of buoyancy and freedom. Then the engine puffed and the wheels went round, and immediately, to his immense surprise, he perceived his own crushed remains, flat as a biscuit, lying on the roadway. He identified them for certain by his clothes, which he had put on for the first time that morning, and one patent leather boot which had escaped demolition.

  ‘But what on earth has happened?’ he said. ‘Here am I, and yet that poor pressed flower of arms and legs is me – or rather I – also. And how terribly upset the driver looks. Why, I do believe that I’ve been run over! It did hurt for a moment, now I come to think of it . . . My good man, where are you shoving to? Don’t you see me?’

  He addressed these two questions to the policeman, who appeared to walk right through him. But the man took no notice, and calmly came out on the other side: it was quite evident that he did not see him, or apprehend him in any way.

  Mr Tilly was still feeling rather at sea amid these unusual occurrences, and there began to steal into his mind a glimpse of the fact which was so obvious to the crowd which formed an interested but respectful ring round his body. Men stood with bared heads; women screamed and looked away and looked back again.

  ‘I really believe I’m dead,’ said he. ‘That’s the only hypothesis which will cover the facts. But I must feel more certain of it before I do anything. Ah! Here they come with the ambulance to look at me. I must be terribly hurt, and yet I don’t feel hurt. I should feel hurt surely if I was hurt. I must be dead.’

  Certainly it seemed the only thing for him to be, but he was far from realising it yet. A lane had been made through the crowd for the stretcher-bearers, and he found himself wincing when they began to detach him from the road.

  ‘Oh, do take care!’ he said. ‘That’s the sciatic nerve protruding there surely, isn’t it? A-ow! No, it didn’t hurt after all. My new clothes, too: I put them on today for the first time. What bad luck! Now you’re holding my leg upside down. Of course all my money comes out of my trouser pocket. And there’s my ticket for the séance; I must have that: I may use it after all.’

  He tweaked it out of the fingers of the man who had picked it up, and laughed to see the expression of amazement on his face as the card suddenly vanished. That gave him something fresh to think about, and he pondered for a moment over some touch of association set up by it.

  ‘I have it,’ he thought. ‘It is clear that the moment I came into connection with that card, it became invisible. I’m invisible myself (of course to the grosser sense), and everything I hold becomes invisible. Most interesting! That accounts for the sudden appearances of small objects at a séance. The spirit has been holding them, and as long as he holds them they are invisible. Then he lets go, and there’s the flower or the spirit-photograph on the table. It accounts, too, for the sudden disappearances of such objects. The spirit has taken them, though the scoffers say that the medium has secreted them about his person. It is true that when searched he sometimes appears to have done so; but, after all, that may be a joke on the part of the spirit. Now, what am I to do with myself . . . Let me see, there’s the clock. It’s just half-past ten. All this has happened in a few minutes, for it was a quarter past when I left my house. Half-past ten now: what does that mean exactly? I used to know what it meant, but now it seems nonsense. Ten what? Hours, is it? What’s an hour?’

  This was very puzzling. He felt that he used to know what an hour and a minute meant, but the perception of that, naturally enough, had ceased with his emergence from time and space into eternity. The conception of time was like some memory which, refusing to record itself on the consciousness, lies perdu in some dark corner of the brain, laughing at the efforts of the owner to ferret it out. While he still interrogated his mind over this lapsed perception, he found that space as well as time, had similarly grown obsolete for him, for he caught sight of his friend Miss Ida Soulsby, who he knew was to be present at the séance for which he was bound, hurrying with bird-like steps down the pavement opposite. Forgetting for the moment that he was a disembodied spirit, he made the effort of will which in his past human existence would have set his legs in pursuit of her, and found that the effort of will alone was enough to place him at her side.

  ‘My dear Miss Soulsby,’ he said, ‘I was on my way to Mrs Cumberbatch’s house when I was knocked down and killed. It was far from unpleasant, a moment’s headache – ’

  So far his natural volubility had carried him before he recollected that he was invisible and inaudible to those still closed in by the muddy vesture of decay, and stopped short. But though it was clear that what he said was inaudible to Miss Soulsby’s rather large intelligent-looking ears, it seemed that some consciousness of his presence was conveyed to her finer sense, for she looked suddenly startled, a flush rose to her face, and he heard her murmur, ‘Very odd. I wonder why I received so vivid an impression of dear Teddy.’

  That gave Mr Tilly a pleasant shock. He had long admired the lady, and here she was alluding to him in her supposed privacy as ‘dear Teddy’. That was followed by a momentary regret that he had been killed: he would have liked to have been possessed of this information before, and have pursued the primrose path of dalliance down which it seemed to lead. (His intentions, of course, would, as always, have been strictly honourable: the path of dalliance would have conducted them both, if she consented, to the altar, where the primroses would have been exchanged for orange blossom.) But his regret was quite short-lived; though the altar seemed inaccessible, the primrose path might still be open, for many of the spiritualistic circle in which he lived were on most affectionate terms with their spiritual guides and friends who, like himself, had passed over. From a human point of view these innocent and even elevating flirtations had always seemed to him rather bloodless; but now, looking on them from the far side, he saw how charming they were, for they gave him the sense of still having a place and an identity in the world he had just quitted. He pressed Miss Ida’s hand (or rather put himself into the spiritual condition of so doing), and could vaguely feel that it had some hint of warmth and solidity about it. This was gratifying, for it showed that though he had passed out of the material plane, he could still be in touch with it. Still more gratifying was it to observe that a pleased and secret smile overspread Miss Ida’s fine features as he gave this token of his presence: perhaps she only smiled at her own thoughts, but in any case i
t was he who had inspired them. Encouraged by this, he indulged in a slightly more intimate token of affection, and permitted himself a respectful salute, and saw that he had gone too far, for she said to herself, ‘Hush, hush!’ and quickened her pace, as if to leave these amorous thoughts behind.

  He felt that he was beginning to adjust himself to the new conditions in which he would now live or, at any rate, was getting some sort of inkling as to what they were. Time existed no more for him, nor yet did space, since the wish to be at Miss Ida’s side had instantly transported him there, and with a view to testing this further he wished himself back in his flat. As swiftly as the change of scene in a cinematograph show he found himself there, and perceived that the news of his death must have reached his servants, for his cook and parlour-maid with excited faces, were talking over the event.

  ‘Poor little gentleman,’ said his cook. ‘It seems a shame it does. He never hurt a fly, and to think of one of those great engines laying him out flat. I hope they’ll take him to the cemetery from the hospital: I never could bear a corpse in the house.’

  The great strapping parlour-maid tossed her head.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure that it doesn’t serve him right,’ she observed. ‘Always messing about with spirits he was, and the knockings and concertinas was awful sometimes when I’ve been laying out supper in the dining-room. Now perhaps he’ll come himself and visit the rest of the loonies. But I’m sorry all the same. A less troublesome little gentleman never stepped. Always pleasant, too, and wages paid to the day.’

  These regretful comments and encomiums were something of a shock to Mr Tilly. He had imagined that his excellent servants regarded him with a respectful affection, as befitted some sort of demigod, and the rôle of the poor little gentleman was not at all to his mind. This revelation of their true estimate of him, although what they thought of him could no longer have the smallest significance irritated him profoundly.

  ‘I never heard such impertinence,’ he said (so he thought) quite out loud, and still intensely earth-bound, was astonished to see that they had no perception whatever of his presence. He raised his voice, replete with extreme irony, and addressed his cook.

  ‘You may reserve your criticism on my character for your saucepans,’ he said. ‘They will no doubt appreciate them. As regards the arrangements for my funeral, I have already provided for them in my will, and do not propose to consult your convenience. At present – ’

  ‘Lor’!’ said Mrs Inglis, ‘I declare I can almost hear his voice, poor little fellow. Husky it was, as if he would do better by clearing his throat. I suppose I’d best be making a black bow to my cap. His lawyers and what not will be here presently.’

  Mr Tilly had no sympathy with this suggestion. He was immensely conscious of being quite alive, and the idea of his servants behaving as if he were dead, especially after the way in which they had spoken about him, was very vexing. He wanted to give them some striking evidence of his presence and his activity, and he banged his hand angrily on the dining-room table, from which the breakfast equipage had not yet been cleared. Three tremendous blows he gave it, and was rejoiced to see that his parlour-maid looked startled. Mrs Inglis’s face remained perfectly placid.

  ‘Why, if I didn’t hear a sort of rapping sound,’ said Miss Talton. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘Nonsense! You’ve the jumps, dear,’ said Mrs Inglis, picking up a remaining rasher of bacon on a fork, and putting it into her capacious mouth.

  Mr Tilly was delighted at making any impression at all on either of these impercipient females.

  ‘Talton!’ he called at the top of his voice.

  ‘Why, what’s that?’ said Talton. ‘Almost hear his voice, do you say, Mrs Inglis? I declare I did hear his voice then.’

  ‘A pack o’ nonsense, dear,’ said Mrs Inglis placidly. ‘That’s a prime bit of bacon, and there’s a good cut of it left. Why, you’re all of a tremble! It’s your imagination.’

  Suddenly it struck Mr Tilly that he might be employing himself much better than, with such extreme exertion, managing to convey so slight a hint of his presence to his parlour-maid, and that the séance at the house of the medium, Mrs Cumberbatch, would afford him much easier opportunities of getting through to the earth-plane again. He gave a couple more thumps to the table and, wishing himself at Mrs Cumberbatch’s, nearly a mile away, scarcely heard the faint scream of Talton at the sound of his blows before he found himself in West Norfolk Street.

  He knew the house well, and went straight to the drawing-room, which was the scene of the séances he had so often and so eagerly attended. Mrs Cumberbatch, who had a long spoon-shaped face, had already pulled down the blinds, leaving the room in total darkness except for the glimmer of the night-light which, under a shade of ruby-glass, stood on the chimneypiece in front of the coloured photograph of Cardinal Newman. Round the table were seated Miss Ida Soulsby, Mr and Mrs Meriott (who paid their guineas at least twice a week in order to consult their spiritual guide Abibel and received mysterious advice about their indigestion and investments), and Sir John Plaice, who was much interested in learning the details of his previous incarnation as a Chaldean priest, completed the circle. His guide, who revealed to him his sacerdotal career, was playfully called Mespot. Naturally many other spirits visited them, for Miss Soulsby had no less than three guides in her spiritual household, Sapphire, Semiramis, and Sweet William, while Napoleon and Plato were not infrequent guests. Cardinal Newman, too, was a great favourite, and they encouraged his presence by the singing in unison of ‘Lead, kindly Light’: he could hardly ever resist that . . .

  Mr Tilly observed with pleasure that there was a vacant seat by the table which no doubt had been placed there for him. As he entered, Mrs Cumberbatch peered at her watch.

  ‘Eleven o’clock already,’ she said, ‘and Mr Tilly is not here yet. I wonder what can have kept him. What shall we do, dear friends? Abibel gets very impatient sometimes if we keep him waiting.’

  Mr and Mrs Meriott were getting impatient too, for he terribly wanted to ask about Mexican oils, and she had a very vexing heartburn.

  ‘And Mespot doesn’t like waiting either,’ said Sir John, jealous for the prestige of his protector, ‘not to mention Sweet William.’

  Miss Soulsby gave a little silvery laugh.

  ‘Oh, but my Sweet William’s so good and kind,’ she said; ‘besides, I have a feeling, quite a psychic feeling, Mrs Cumberbatch, that Mr Tilly is very close.’

  ‘So I am,’ said Mr Tilly.

  ‘Indeed, as I walked here,’ continued Miss Soulsby, ‘I felt that Mr Tilly was somewhere quite close to me. Dear me, what’s that?’

  Mr Tilly was so delighted at being sensed, that he could not resist giving a tremendous rap on the table, in a sort of pleased applause. Mrs Cumberbatch heard it too.

  ‘I’m sure that’s Abibel come to tell us that he is ready,’ she said. ‘I know Abibel’s knock. A little patience, Abibel. Let’s give Mr Tilly three minutes more and then begin. Perhaps, if we put up the blinds, Abibel will understand we haven’t begun.’

  This was done, and Miss Soulsby glided to the window, in order to make known Mr Tilly’s approach, for he always came along the opposite pavement and crossed over by the little island in the river of traffic. There was evidently some lately published news, for the readers of early editions were busy, and she caught sight of one of the advertisement boards bearing in large letters the announcement of a terrible accident at Hyde Park Corner. She drew in her breath with a hissing sound and turned away, unwilling to have her psychic tranquillity upset by the intrusion of painful incidents. But Mr Tilly, who had followed her to the window and saw what she had seen, could hardly restrain a spiritual whoop of exultation.

  ‘Why, it’s all about me!’ he said. ‘Such large letters, too. Very gratifying. Subsequent editions will no doubt contain my name.’


  He gave another loud rap to call attention to himself, and Mrs Cumberbatch, sitting down in her antique chair which had once belonged to Madame Blavatsky, again heard.

  ‘Well, if that isn’t Abibel again,’ she said. ‘Be quiet, naughty. Perhaps we had better begin.’

  She recited the usual invocation to guides and angels, and leaned back in her chair. Presently she began to twitch and mutter, and shortly afterwards with several loud snorts, relapsed into cataleptic immobility. There she lay, stiff as a poker, a port of call, so to speak, for any voyaging intelligence. With pleased anticipation Mr Tilly awaited their coming. How gratifying if Napoleon, with whom he had so often talked, recognised him and said, ‘Pleased to see you, Mr Tilly. I perceive you have joined us . . . ’ The room was dark except for the ruby-shaded lamp in front of Cardinal Newman, but to Mr Tilly’s emancipated perceptions the withdrawal of mere material light made no difference, and he idly wondered why it was generally supposed that disembodied spirits like himself produced their most powerful effects in the dark. He could not imagine the reason for that, and, what puzzled him still more, there was not to his spiritual perception any sign of those colleagues of his (for so he might now call them) who usually attended Mrs Cumberbatch’s séances in such gratifying numbers. Though she had been moaning and muttering a long time now, Mr Tilly was in no way conscious of the presence of Abibel and Sweet William and Sapphire and Napoleon: ‘They ought to be here by now,’ he said to himself.

  But while he still wondered at their absence, he saw to his amazed disgust that the medium’s hand, now covered with a black glove, and thus invisible to ordinary human vision in the darkness, was groping about the table and clearly searching for the megaphone-trumpet which lay there. He found that he could read her mind with the same ease, though far less satisfaction, as he had read Miss Ida’s half an hour ago, and knew that she was intending to apply the trumpet to her own mouth and pretend to be Abibel or Semiramis or somebody, whereas she affirmed that she never touched the trumpet herself. Much shocked at this, he snatched up the trumpet himself, and observed that she was not in trance at all, for she opened her sharp black eyes, which always reminded him of buttons covered with American cloth, and gave a great gasp.