by E. Nesbit
‘I thought you were going to say something,’ the dapper man went on. ‘Well, we talked about other things and parted, and I thought no more about it till business brought me to – but I’d better not name the town either – and I found my firm had marked this very hotel – where poor Fred had met his death, you know – for me to put up at. And I had to put up there too, because of their addressing everything to me there. And, anyhow, I expect I should have gone there out of curiosity.
‘No. I didn’t believe in ghosts in those days. I was like you, sir,’ he nodded amiably to the large commercial.
‘The house was very full, and we were quite a large party in the room – very pleasant company, as it might be tonight; and we got talking of ghosts – just as it might be us. And there was a chap in glasses, sitting just over there, I remember – an old hand on the road, he was; and he said, just as it might be any of you, “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I wouldn’t care to sleep in Number Seventeen, for all that”; and, of course, we asked him why. “Because,” said he, very short, “that’s why.”
‘But when we’d persuaded him a bit, he told us.
‘“Because that’s the room where chaps cut their throats,” he said. “There was a chap called Bert Hatteras began it. They found him weltering in his gore. And since that every man that’s slept there’s been found with his throat cut.”
‘I asked him how many had slept there. “Well, only two beside the first,” he said; “they shut it up then.” “Oh, did they?” said I. “Well, they’ve opened it again. Number Seventeen’s my room!”
‘I tell you those chaps looked at me.
‘“But you aren’t going to sleep in it?” one of them said. And I explained that I didn’t pay half a dollar for a bedroom to keep awake in.
‘“I suppose it’s press of business has made them open it up again,” the chap in spectacles said. “It’s a very mysterious affair. There’s some secret horror about that room that we don’t understand,” he said, “and I’ll tell you another queer thing. Every one of those poor chaps was a commercial gentleman. That’s what I don’t like about it. There was Bert Hatteras – he was the first, and a chap called Jones – Frederick Jones, and then Donald Overshaw – a Scotchman he was, and travelled in child’s underclothing.”
‘Well, we sat there and talked a bit, and if I hadn’t been a Bond of Joy, I don’t know that I mightn’t have exceeded, gentlemen – yes, positively exceeded; for the more I thought about it the less I liked the thought of Number Seventeen. I hadn’t noticed the room particularly, except to see that the furniture had been changed since poor Fred’s time. So I just slipped out, by-and-by, and I went out to the little glass case under the arch where the booking-clerk sits – just like here, that hotel was – and I said, “Look here, miss; haven’t you another room empty except seventeen?”
‘“No,” she said; “I don’t think so.”
‘“Then what’s that?” I said, and pointed to a key hanging on the board, the only one left.
‘“Oh,” she said, “that’s sixteen.”
‘“Anyone in sixteen?” I said. “Is it a comfortable room?”
‘“No,” said she. “Yes; quite comfortable. It’s next door to yours – much the same class of room.”
‘“Then I’ll have sixteen, if you’ve no objection,” I said, and went back to the others, feeling very clever.
‘When I went up to bed I locked my door, and, though I didn’t believe in ghosts, I wished seventeen wasn’t next door to me, and I wished there wasn’t a door between the two rooms, though the door was locked right enough and the key in my side. I’d only got the one candle besides the two on the dressing-table, which I hadn’t lighted; and I got my collar and tie off before I noticed that the furniture in my new room was the furniture out of Number Seventeen; French bed with red curtains, mahogany wardrobe as big as a hearse, and the carved mirror over the dressing-table between the two windows, and “Belshazzar’s Feast” over the mantelpiece. So that, though I’d not got the room where the commercial gentlemen had cut their throats, I’d got the furniture out of it. And for a moment I thought that was worse than the other. When I thought of what the furniture could tell, if it could speak—
‘It was a silly thing to do – but we’re all friends here and I don’t mind owning up – I looked under the bed and I looked inside the hearse-wardrobe and I looked in a sort of narrow cupboard there was, where a body could have stood upright—’
‘A body?’ I repeated.
‘A man, I mean. You see, it seemed to me that either these poor chaps had been murdered by someone who hid himself in Number Seventeen to do it, or else there was something there that frightened them into cutting their throats; and upon my soul, I can’t tell you which idea I liked least!’
He paused, and filled his pipe very deliberately. ‘Go on,’ someone said. And he went on.
‘Now, you’ll observe,’ he said, ‘that all I’ve told you up to the time of my going to bed that night’s just hearsay. So I don’t ask you to believe it – though the three coroners’ inquests would be enough to stagger most chaps, I should say. Still, what I’m going to tell you now’s my part of the story – what happened to me myself in that room.’
He paused again, holding the pipe in his hand, unlighted.
There was a silence, which I broke.
‘Well, what did happen?’ I asked.
‘I had a bit of a struggle with myself,’ he said. ‘I reminded myself it was not that room, but the next one that it had happened in. I smoked a pipe or two and read the morning paper, advertisements and all. And at last I went to bed. I left the candle burning, though, I own that.’
‘Did you sleep?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I slept. Sound as a top. I was awakened by a soft tapping on my door. I sat up. I don’t think I’ve ever been so frightened in my life. But I made myself say, “Who’s there?” in a whisper. Heaven knows I never expected anyone to answer. The candle had gone out and it was pitch-dark. There was a quiet murmur and a shuffling outside. And no one answered. I tell you I hadn’t expected anyone to. But. I cleared my throat and cried out, “Who’s there?” in a real out-loud voice. And “Me, sir,” said a voice. “Shaving-water, sir; six o’clock, sir.”
‘It was the chambermaid.’
A movement of relief ran round our circle.
‘I don’t think much of your story,’ said the large commercial.
‘You haven’t heard it yet,’ said the story-teller, dryly. ‘It was six o’clock on a winter’s morning, and pitch-dark. My train went at seven. I got up and began to dress. My one candle wasn’t much use. I lighted the two on the dressing-table to see to shave by. There wasn’t any shaving-water outside my door, after all. And the passage was as black as a coal-hole. So I started to shave with cold water; one has to sometimes, you know. I’d gone over my face and I was just going lightly round under my chin, when I saw something move in the looking-glass. I mean something that moved was reflected in the looking-glass. The big door of the wardrobe had swung open, and by a sort of double reflection I could see the French bed with the red curtains. On the edge of it sat a man in his shirt and trousers – a man with black hair and whiskers, with the most awful look of despair and fear on his face that I’ve ever seen or dreamt of. I stood paralysed, watching him in the mirror. I could not have turned round to save my life. Suddenly he laughed. It was a horrid, silent laugh, and showed all his teeth. They were very white and even. And the next moment he had cut his throat from ear to ear, there before my eyes. Did you ever see a man cut his throat? The bed was all white before.’
The story-teller had laid down his pipe, and he passed his hand over his face before he went on.
‘When I could look round I did. There was no one in the room. The bed was as white as ever. Well, that’s all,’ he said, abruptly, ‘except that now, of course, I understood how these poor chaps had come by their deaths. They’d all seen this horror – the ghost of the first poor chap, I suppose –
Bert Hatteras, you know; and with the shock their hands must have slipped and their throats got cut before they could stop themselves. Oh! by the way, when I looked at my watch it was two o’clock; there hadn’t been any chambermaid at all. I must have dreamed that. But I didn’t dream the other. Oh! and one thing more. It was the same room. They hadn’t changed the room, they’d only changed the number. It was the same room!’
‘Look here,’ said the heavy man; ‘the room you’ve been talking about. My room’s sixteen. And it’s got that same furniture in it as what you describe, and the same picture and all.’
‘Oh, has it?’ said the story-teller, a little uncomfortable, it seemed. ‘I’m sorry. But the cat’s out of the bag now, and it can’t be helped. Yes, it was this house I was speaking of. I suppose they’ve opened the room again. But you don’t believe in ghosts; you’ll be all right.’
‘Yes,’ said the heavy man, and presently got up and left the room.
‘He’s gone to see if he can get his room changed, you see if he hasn’t,’ said the rabbit-faced man; ‘and I don’t wonder.’
The heavy man came back and settled into his chair.
‘I could do with a drink,’ he said, reaching to the bell.
‘I’ll stand some punch, gentlemen, if you’ll allow me,’ said our dapper story-teller. ‘I rather pride myself on my punch. I’ll step out to the bar and get what I need for it.’
‘I thought he said he was a teetotaller,’ said the heavy traveller when he had gone. And then our voices buzzed like a hive of bees. When our story-teller came in again we turned on him – half-a-dozen of us at once – and spoke.
‘One at a time,’ he said gently. ‘I didn’t quite catch what you said.’
‘We want to know,’ I said, ‘how it was – if seeing that ghost made all those chaps cut their throats by startling them when they were shaving – how was it you didn’t cut your throat when you saw it?’
‘I should have,’ he answered, gravely, ‘without the slightest doubt – I should have cut my throat, only,’ he glanced at our heavy friend, ‘I always shave with a safety razor. I travel in them,’ he added, slowly, and bisected a lemon.
‘But – but,’ said the large man, when he could speak through our uproar, ‘I’ve gone and given up my room.’
‘Yes,’ said the dapper man, squeezing the lemon; ‘I’ve just had my things moved into it, it’s the best room in the house. I always think it worthwhile to take a little pains to secure it.’
THE PAVILION
There was never a moment’s doubt in her own mind. So she said afterwards. And everyone agreed that she had concealed her feelings with true womanly discretion. Her friend and confidant, Amelia Davenant, was at any rate completely deceived. Amelia was one of those featureless blondes who seem born to be overlooked. She adored her beautiful friend, and never, from first to last, could see any fault in her, except, perhaps, on the evening when the real things of the story happened. And even in that matter she owned at the time that it was only that her darling Ernestine did not understand.
Ernestine was a prettyish girl with the airs, so irresistible and misleading, of a beauty; most people said that she was beautiful, and she certainly managed, with extraordinary success, to produce the illusion of beauty. Quite a number of plainish girls achieve that effect nowadays. The freedom of modern dress and coiffure and the increasing confidence in herself which the modern girl experiences, aid her in fostering the illusion; but in the sixties, when everyone wore much the same sort of bonnet, when your choice in coiffure was limited to bandeaux or ringlets, and the crinoline was your only wear, something very like genius was needed to deceive the world in the matter of your personal charms. Ernestine had that genius; hers was the smiling, ringleted, dark-haired, dark-eyed, sparkling type.
Amelia had blonde bandeaux and kind appealing blue eyes, rather too small and rather too dull; her hands and ears were beautiful, and she kept them out of sight as much as possible. In our times the blonde hair would have been puffed out to make a frame for the forehead, a little too high; a certain shade of blue and a certain shade of boldness would have made her eyes effective. And the beautiful hands would have learned that flowerlike droop of the wrist so justly and so universally admired. But as it was, Amelia was very nearly plain, and in her secret emotional self-communings told herself that she was ugly. It was she who, at the age of fourteen, composed the remarkable poem beginning:
I know that I am ugly: did I make
The face that is the laugh and jest of all?
and goes on, after disclaiming any personal responsibility for the face, to entreat the kind earth to ‘cover it away from mocking eyes’, and to ‘let the daisies blossom where it lies’.
Amelia did not want to die, and her face was not the laugh and jest, or indeed the special interest, of anyone. All that was poetic license. Amelia had read perhaps a little too much poetry of the type of ‘Quand je suis morte, mes amies, plantez un saule au cimetière’; but really life was a very good thing to Amelia, especially when she had a new dress and someone paid her a compliment. But she went on writing verses extolling the advantages of The Tomb, and grovelling metrically at the feet of One who was Another’s until that summer, when she was nineteen, and went to stay with Ernestine at Doricourt. Then her Muse took flight, scared, perhaps, by the possibility, suddenly and threateningly presented, of being asked to inspire verse about the real thing of life.
At any rate, Amelia ceased to write poetry about the time when she and Ernestine and Ernestine’s aunt went on a visit to Doricourt, where Frederick Powell lived with his aunt. It was not one of those hurried motor-fed excursions which we have now, and call weekends, but a long leisurely visit, when all the friends of the static aunt called on the dynamic aunt, and both returned the calls with much state, a big barouche, and a pair of fat horses. There were croquet parties and archery parties and little dances, all pleasant informal little gaieties arranged without ceremony among people who lived within driving distance of each other and knew each other’s tastes and incomes and family history as well as they knew their own. The habit of importing huge droves of strangers from distant counties for brief harrying raids did not then obtain. There was instead a wide and constant circle of pleasant people with an unflagging stream of gaiety, mild indeed, but delightful to unjaded palates.
And at Doricourt life was delightful even on the days when there was no party. It was perhaps more delightful to Ernestine than to her friend, but even so, the one least pleased was Ernestine’s aunt.
‘I do think,’ she said to the other aunt whose name was Julia – ‘I daresay it is not so to you, being accustomed to Mr W. Frederick, of course, from his childhood, but I always find gentlemen in the house so unsettling, especially young gentlemen, and when there are young ladies also. One is always on the qui vive for excitement.’
‘Of course,’ said Aunt Julia, with the air of a woman of the world; ‘living as you and dear Ernestine do, with only females in the house …’
‘We hang up an old coat and hat of my brother’s on the hatstand in the hall,’ Aunt Emmeline protested.
‘… The presence of gentlemen in the house must be a little unsettling. For myself, I am inured to it. Frederick has so many friends. Mr Thesiger, perhaps, the greatest. I believe him to be a most worthy young man, but peculiar.’ She leaned forward across her bright-tinted Berlin woolwork and spoke impressively, the needle with its trailing red poised in air. ‘You know, I hope you will not think it indelicate of me to mention such a thing, but dear Frederick … your dear Ernestine would have been in every way so suitable.’
‘Would have been?’ Aunt Emmeline’s tortoise-shell shuttle ceased its swift movement among the white loops and knots of her tatting.
‘Well, my dear,’ said the other aunt, a little shortly, ‘you must surely have noticed …’
‘You don’t mean to suggest that Amelia … I thought Mr Thesiger and Amelia …’
‘Amelia! I really must say!
No, I was alluding to Mr Thesiger’s attentions to dear Ernestine. Most marked. In dear Frederick’s place I should have found some excuse for shortening Mr Thesiger’s visit. But, of course, I cannot interfere. Gentlemen must manage these things for themselves. I only hope that there will be none of that trifling with the most holy affections of others which …’
The less voluble aunt cut in hotly with: ‘Ernestine’s incapable of anything so unladylike.’
‘Just what I was saying,’ the other rejoined blandly, got up and drew the blind a little lower, for the afternoon sun was glowing on the rosy wreaths of the drawing-room carpet.
Outside in the sunshine Frederick was doing his best to arrange his own affairs. He had managed to place himself beside Miss Ernestine Meutys on the stone steps of the pavilion; but then, Mr Thesiger lay along the lower step at her feet, a very good position for looking up into her eyes. Amelia was beside him, but then it never seemed to matter whom Amelia sat beside.
They were talking about the pavilion on whose steps they sat, and Amelia who often asked uninteresting questions had wondered how old it was. It was Frederick’s pavilion after all, and he felt this when his friend took the words out of his mouth and used them on his own account, even though he did give the answer in the form of an appeal.
‘The foundations are Tudor, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘Wasn’t it an observatory or laboratory or something of that sort in Fat Henry’s time?’
‘Yes,’ said Frederick, ‘there was some story about a wizard or an alchemist or something, and it was burned down, and then they rebuilt it in its present style.’
‘The Italian style, isn’t it?’ said Thesiger; ‘but you can hardly see what it is now, for the creeper.’