Gaslit Nightmares

by Lamb, Hugh;

  ‘I did not sleep very well last night. Someone was in and out of my room several times, but they did not reply to my challenge, and as they did not molest me, no harm is done. I expect it was Agnes, trying to convince me of the truth of her ghost stories. I saw Miss Mure just after twelve o’clock today. She is an ogress. I think she is harmless, for she is nearly blind, but she is dreadful to look upon; very big, very stout, with a great fat face and tremendous cheeks and neck. She speaks in a very snappy, peremptory manner, but what she has said so far has not been disagreeable. My chief duty it appears is to read to her in the afternoons. We commenced today; she has a large number of books, but they are very old and about many curious things. Some of them are in black letter, which is very hard to read; some are in Latin, which I can read, but cannot understand. Miss Mure says, so much the better. When she tries to read she has to bring the volume quite close to her nose, and then runs along the line. It must be very trying work for her, but it is quite comical to see. We finished by reading in a book called Certaine Secret Wonders of Nature, and I had to copy out the following description of a monster, for Miss Mure said she knew where that was one just like it, only it was nearly six months old; she seemed very much interested in the description, which she has learned by heart.

  ‘ “Begotten of honourable parents, yet was he most horrible, deformed and fearefull, having his eyes of the colour of fire, his mouth and his nose like to the snoute of an Oxe, wyth an Horne annexed thereunto like the Trumpe of an Elephant; all hys back shagge-hairde like a dogge, and in place where other men be accustomed to have brests, he had two heads of an Ape, having above his navell marked the eies of a cat, and joyned to his knee and armes foure heades of a dog, with a grenning and fearefull countenance. The palmes of his feet and handes were like to those of an Ape; and among the rest he had a taile turning up so high, that the height thereof was half an elle; who after he had lived foure houres died.’

  ‘A fortnight has passed since I last wrote in my journal. I have had two letters from my sister Maggie, and one from mother; both complain that they have not heard from me save by the note advising my arrival. I have given three letters to Agnes to post for me, today I found them on the dresser in her kitchen. I am not allowed to go out of the house at all; first one excuse and then another is made, but I shall soon see whether or not any attempt will be made to keep me prisoner here. Two people have been at different times to see Miss Mure, but the interviews have been private. There is very little variety in the life we lead, and our reading is confined to the same class of book. I have become quite learned respecting goblin-land. I should know much more if I understood better the Latin books I have to read, but they are printed in such strange type and with so many abbreviations, that I have to concentrate my attention upon the words, not the sense. How different this world to the one about which I used to read, and in which I used to live! This is one peopled by demons, phantoms, vampires, ghouls, boggarts, and nixies. Names of things of which I knew nothing are now so familiar that the creatures themselves appear to have real existence. The Arabian Nights are not more fantastic than our gospels; and Lempriére would have found ours a more marvellous world to catalogue than the classical mythical to which he devoted his learning. Ours is a world of luprachaun and clurichaune, deev and cloolie, and through the maze of mystery I have to thread my painful way, now learning how to distinguish oufe from pooka, and nis from pixy; study long screeds upon the doings of effreets and dwergers, or decipher the dwaul of delirious monks who have made homunculi from refuse. Waking or sleeping, the image of some uncouth form is always present to me. What would I not give for a volume by the once despised ’A. L. O. E’ or prosy Emma Worboise? Talk of the troubles of Winifred Bertram or Jane Eyre, what are they to mine? Talented authoresses do not seem to know that however terrible it may be to have as a neighbour a mad woman in a tower, it is much worse to have to live in a kitchen with a crocodile. This elementary fact has escaped the notice of writers of fiction; the re-statement of it has induced me to reconsider my decision as to the most longed-for book; my choice now is the Swiss Family Robinson. In it I have no doubt I should find how to make even the crocodile useful, or how to kill it, which would be still better.

  ‘It is a month to-day since I left home. It seems a year. I am conscious of a great change in myself; this cooped-up life, the whole of my time passed in the company of people for whom I have no affection, and my thoughts engaged with things to which I have a natural aversion, have altered my character. That this change was desired by my employer I am certain. The atmosphere of mystery and unreality which pervades this house has broken my nerve. The trifling irregularities at which I used to laugh now oppress me; the dream faces, the scrapings, the waving of the bed-curtains, the footsteps and the scurrying, which disturb my rest, I cannot attribute to my imagination. Until a week or so ago I felt strong enough to dismiss them as absurdities, now I do not know what to think. I see strange forms disappearing from the rooms as I enter them; creatures, like to nothing in the heaven above or in the earth beneath, trip across the landing as I mount the stairs to my chamber; small headless beasts creep through the skirting-board on the corridor to hide themselves from my gaze, and these matters now affect me greatly. In the words of Job, ’Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof.’ I am quite in the power of Miss Mure; she takes my hand in hers, and I know not how the time passes, but I feel weak and listless; even the letters from Maggie and mother do not interest me; they are in answer to letters I do not remember to have written. There has been one gathering here for the performance of the rites of the higher mystery. I was present, but I remember very little of them; one great horror excluded all others. A thing they brought here, half human, half-I know not what. I was in the front room downstairs when it arrived. It stood on two splayed feet outside the front gate when I first saw it, and its hand was grasped by a sad-looking, demure little man, with white hair, and wearing large blue spectacles. Its face was hidden by a dark silk pocket handkerchief tucked in under the edge of a heavy cloth cap, and it made uncouth noises, and tugged at the bars of the gate like a wild beast in a cage. At the séance we were in semi-darkness; at the table it was placed right opposite me, and the cap and handkerchief were removed – but it would be wicked to describe what was disclosed – neither God nor demon could have made that horror! Its keeper stood at the back of it, and he had taken from the black handbag he carried a short, stiff stick with a pear-shaped end, with which he energetically cudgelled the horror about the elbows when it tried to get across the table to me; apparently the only thing it sought to do. Strange shapes flitted about in the gloom, harsh noises were made, there was some weird chanting and hysterical sobbing; the sooterkin was brought from its warm-lined hatching-box, and twitched two tentacles sluggishly after the manner of a moribund jelly-fish; but my attention was riveted on the horror before whom I crouched. Since the séance I have had more leisure, and have hardly seen Miss Mure, who is engaged in preparations for some other orgie; thus I have time, and now some inclination, to write once more.

  ‘Agnes tells me that I am soon to go into “Caduceus,” a small room at the back of the house. It looks out upon that corner of the garden which is a dense tangle of shrub and bramble. It is at the angle nearest to a low building which has been built on a piece of land cut off from the garden. The building, Agnes says, is the mortuary for this district, and it is only when there are bodies there that Miss Mure convenes a meeting. The girl who came to the last séance and sat at my side is, Agnes informs me, a successful sorceress. Only a short time ago she was robust, stout, and healthy; now she is like a walking corpse, and she draws her strength from those of her acquaintance who do not shun her. If Agnes is to be believed, this Miss Buimbert must be a sort of soul vampire, sucking the spirituality from every person who allows her to approach within range of
her influence. I was doubtful whether she was in reality a person or only the phantom of one; it has become so hard to me now to distinguish the actual from the seemingly real. I know that the headless forms and curious creatures which are ever flitting before me, and disappearing at my approach, are but illusions or phantasms conjured by Miss Mure to make an impression upon me, and it is to her that I owe the visitations of intangible visionary monsters who disturb my rest with groans, and make my waking moments horrible by their hideous grimaces and threatening gestures. I know the horror was real, for it had to be admitted by the front gate, and the impress left by its clubbed feet was visible for days on the clayey side walk outside the entrance gate. The sooterkin is real, for I have touched the brown skin of its boneless body, and seen the impression of its short, flabby, rounded limbs in the soft cotton wool of its bed.

  ‘I know the phantoms cannot harm me, and I pray earnestly for preservation from all ill, and that I may be delivered from this place.

  ‘Why was I brought here? For what unholy purpose am I necessary to these people that they guard me so jealously? Perhaps Agnes may be induced to give me some indication of my fate.

  ‘Three days have passed since I wrote in my journal; an event has happened which has increased the mystery of this place. Yesternight, about ten o’clock, a car drew up at the front gate. I was in the front room and peeped through the blind. As Agnes passed the door to answer the knock she turned the key of the room and made me a prisoner. She admitted three men, and a fourth stood on the flags between the door and the gate. I had ample opportunity for examining him closely. A coarse, ruffianly-looking, burly man, a drover or butcher, or one following some brutalizing calling, I judged, from his appearance and his manner whilst standing and walking. Dark hair, a short beard, and a raucous voice. After admitting the men Agnes went hurriedly to her kitchen, and locked and barred the door, and soon I heard the hiss and the clattering of furniture which followed “Sivvy’s” entrance into the front kitchen.

  ‘The three men went upstairs, and in a few moments the stillness of the house was broken by the shrill shrieks of a female; the screams were accompanied by sounds of a scuffle and overturned furniture, then the noise partly subsided, but the struggle had not ceased. I heard the heavy breathing of the men, and seemed to see the efforts made by the woman they were dragging to the stairs. There were gasps and short cries as they brought her downstairs, and a short but sharp struggle in the hall. Then the burly man stepped within, and soon the four reappeared in front, half carrying half dragging a struggling woman. Her light hair flew in disorder, as she twisted and bent to free herself. It was with diffculty they forced her into the car, and I saw her arms waving in helplessness as the captors endeavoured to enter the vehicle. I saw, too, that something had been tied over her mouth, and the last thing I noticed on her thin forearm, from which the dress had been torn, was a freshly-made scratch two or more inches in length, from which the blood was still trickling. Three of the men, including the burly drover, having entered the vehicle, the fourth rang our bell, then mounted the seat by the driver, and as they drove away I saw them pulling down the blinds to the windows of the car.

  ‘Agnes went out at once and locked the gate, then bolted and barred the door and came to me. She appeared to have been drinking heavily, and answered my earnestly-put questions in an incoherent manner. If I am to believe her there have been several girls engaged at different times as companions to Miss Mure, and none of them have escaped; some have died, others have been taken away after residing here a long time. What am I to do? I will see Miss Mure tomorrow and demand some explanation of what I have seen and heard; and I have told Agnes to tell Miss Mure when she first sees her tomorrow that I must have an interview.

  ‘I did not sleep at all last night, for I could not dismiss from my mind the scene I had witnessed, and what with speculating upon the fate of the unhappy creature forcibly taken away, and forebodings of ill to myself, I passed a most wretched time.

  ‘Somewhat to my surprise Miss Mure expressed her willingness to see me at once. She was at breakfast when I entered her bedroom, feeling very nervous, and not quite knowing what to say. I told her that I did not like the place, and wished to go home; that she had no confidence in me, and did not even let me know who were the inmates of the house. To this she replied that she was sorry that I was not comfortable, that Agnes should have instructions to give me greater attention, and that any delicacy I might express a liking for should be obtained for me. As to not knowing who were the inmates of the house, she could not understand to whom I referred. No one was there, or had been there, but herself, myself, and Agnes. When I told her of what I had seen, she said it was all imagination; she knew nothing of anyone having been there, and surely she would have heard had there been any such struggle as I described. I told her that the footprints on the footway outside the gate, and the marks of the carriage wheels, were still to be seen distinctly, so that I was sure I had not deceived myself. She said it was cruel of me to mention such evidence, as I knew she was so afflicted that she could not see the marks herself; and even were the marks there, as I said, she was not responsible, for they were not upon her premises, and what people did outside our gates was beyond our control. The neighbourhood had greatly deteriorated since she first resided there. Had they not forced her to give up the most delightful portion of the garden for the erection of a public mortuary? A thing which so incensed her that she had entirely neglected the “beautiful pleasure grounds” since, and allowed the gardens to run wild, for she never used them now, and she only hoped that the authorities would allow her to enjoy possession of her house unmolested for the few years that remained to her. Then I complained of the crocodile. To this the answer was that I need not go near it. Siva – that is its correct name – was to be kept in the kitchen; it was a strange pet, but Agnes wished to keep it, and as long as she kept it in her own quarters she was to be allowed to do so. If it was once found in any other part of the house it was to go; Agnes knew that, and I need not fear that it would be allowed to pass the threshold of the kitchen. Then I said that I did not like the “horror”, and I could not, and would not, stay if it ever came again. She replied that it was impertinent of me to attempt to dictate to her as to whom she should or should not invite as guests to her house, and that she would not submit to my dictation; no harm had been done to me, I had experienced no rudeness, and she was sure that none of her acquaintance would insult me. I then told her that I had heard that none of the persons who had previously filled the post I occupied had received any wages; that I was too poor to stay there if not paid, and that my only object on leaving home was to earn something to help to support my mother, as my sister’s salary was insufficient, and that I should be pleased to be able to send them something at once. She listened in silence, but veritably stormed her reply. I had been listening to “idle kitchen tales,” for she always paid when the money was due, my first quarter’s salary was not payable until Christmas. I should have it then, unless she sent me about my business before, and she would like to know if there were any other preposterous claims I wished to make. To this I replied somewhat hotly that I had not made any preposterous claims, that I had simply asked for an advance of money as a favour and for the purpose I stated; that I certainly did wish for greater liberty; that I had never been outside the door since the day I came, that I wanted greater freedom for writing and posting my letters, and that I could not consent to remain in her service unless she showed greater confidence in me, and informed of the object she had in view when compelling my attendance at such meetings as the séance at which I had assisted. She said that she was pleased I had spoken out boldly, for she now felt no diffidence in making our relative positions plain to me. She wished me to remember that she stood in loco parentis, and therefore could not allow me to wander about alone, for the neighbourhood was not one of the kind in which a young girl could do so with impunity. But I was not to imagine that it was by her wish that I was co
nfined to the premises. On fitting occasions, and as opportunities offered, we should drive and walk out together. As to the writing of letters I was, and always had been, quite free to write when I liked and whatever I wished to either my mother or my sister, and so far from having tampered with my correspondence she was only too pleased to know that my letters had been delivered to me personally by the postman. I sadly mistrusted her, but she was sure it was because I did not know her sufficiently well, and as proof of the kindly interest she took in my welfare, and that of my mother and sister, she would be pleased to advance me, there and then, five pounds on account of my first quarter’s salary if I would undertake to send it at once, writing only a few lines to say why it had been sent, and in her presence putting the money in the envelope, sealing it and taking it directly to the gate, and giving it to any boy who might be playing in the locality to post in the letter box which we could see about a hundred yards distant. She knew it must be tiresome to a young girl to have no companion but Agnes, so, if my mother was agreeable, I might at Christmas spend a few days with friends in London; or, if that could not be arranged, I might invite anyone to spend some time with me in her house; she would always be ready to grant me facilities to receive or visit any friend of whom my mother might approve. As to the object of her studies and work, she was gratified that I showed any interest in them. I was possessed of sufficient intelligence, she thought, to form some idea of her work from the books I had read to her. She was engaged in researches of a kind not understood by many, and she admitted that the methods it was necessary to adopt were not always pleasant; indeed they were viewed with such suspicion by the authorities that it was advisable to work in secret, or at any rate in such a manner as would excite but little suspicion. She concluded, “I liked you, dear, from the time I first saw your portrait, and I hope some day you will be an earnest worker in the cause to which I have devoted my life.”