by Simon Stern
“How good you are to me,” she murmured. “Yes; let us be happy to-night, for who knows where I shall be in the morning.”
I drew one of the easy chairs close to the fire for her, and I bade her be seated. She nestled in its depths with a sigh of content. I had flung off my coat, and, kneeling on the rug, was endeavouring to rub some warmth into her small numbed hands. She bent forward to me and patted my face.
“How handsome you are,” she said, “and how nice you look in evening dress.”
I kissed her fingers passionately, but their dead coldness went to my heart with a chill.
“I am so cold,” she again repeated. She stretched out her tiny feet, and as I saw the fine black silk stockings, and the thin kid shoes with their dainty bows and diamond buckle, I mentally execrated the man who had turned a woman out of doors clothed like this on such a night. I took off her shoes and rubbed her feet and made her swallow some more brandy. I added coals to the fire and wrapped my coat round her bare shoulders.
Every trivial event of that night is impressed on my memory, and will only be effaced with death. Once I asked her if she would like me to wake up the servants and let them take her to bed, but she refused with a gentle smile.
“Let me stay here,” she entreated, “it is warm, and you know I am so cold.”
She walked up and down the room, and once drew aside the curtains and blind from the window and looked out into the garden.
“I always hated that garden,” she said.
“Why,” cried I, astonished; “do you know it, then?”
She smiled inscrutably, and looked at me. She stretched out her arms, and I forgot everything, forgot that she was married, that being under my roof she should have been sacred. I say I forgot everything, but before you condemn me think of my temptation. I was only young, the blood of youth leaped through my veins, she held out her hands to me, and I rushed to her. I caught her in my arms, and I nearly crushed her slender form in the fervour of my embrace. I clasped her tightly to my throbbing, passionate heart, and rained hot kisses on her sweet face. I pressed my lips to hers, and tried to thaw their icy chill by the warmth of mine. I murmured endearing words to her, and swore that come what might she should never leave me. In those few blissful moments I felt the very ecstasy of love, my very soul went out of me, I was dizzy and blinded with emotion. I felt the supple form grow heavy in my arms, and she said faintly, “Let me rest.”
I lifted her into the chair, and I was alarmed to see how ill she looked; her eyes were half closed, her whole figure dejected and helpless. “Forgive me, darling,” I said, remorsefully, “I forgot myself.”
She opened her eyes wearily. “I am so cold,” she said, “and so faint; undo this band for the love of heaven, for I choke and die.”
She half rose, with her hand to her throat, and then sank nervelessly back into the easy chair. I bent over her, and took the brooch from the band of black watered ribbon about her throat, and, great God, how can I write it, how can I steady my hand so as to pen the words; as I undid the ribbon, so did that lovely head drop off.
Oh, the horror of it, there where but one moment before was a beautiful breathing woman, was now a headless trunk, and at my feet was the head, hideous and bloody, the eyes open and glassy, and with an awful expression of terror in their depths, the teeth biting through the lips with a dumb agony. I looked round madly, everywhere was blood; the rug was soaked with it, it fell from the easy chair to the ground with a hollow splash, a trail of it went to the door, the curtains where her hands had touched were stained scarlet. I looked down again at the head. I was frozen with horror, it was there, but oh, terrible sight, no longer the head of a young and beautiful woman, but a hideous skull, one mass of vile corruption.
This was too much for me. I gave one yell of terror that rung through the quiet house, and just then my eye caught sight of the calendar. It was the 21st of December. I tried to move but the smell of blood sickened me. With a moan I fell to the ground senseless.
When again I recovered my senses it was June. For six months I had been raving mad. On the morning of the 22nd of December Anne had found me lying on the floor of the consulting room, the apartment looking precisely the same as usual, and for weeks and months I was insane, but, thanks to clever doctors, good nursing, and a strong constitution, I pulled round. Directly I was strong enough I went abroad, to endeavour to efface the memory of that awful night, but although some of the terror has gone I shall never forget it, and never shall I marry while the sight of that lovely face is still in my memory.
I can give no explanation of the mysterious occurrence, excepting that some six months after I had returned to my professional duties from my illness I attended an old lady, who had known Doctor and Mrs. Caravini, who had once lived at No. 19. I asked what she was like, and the answer was—“A very beautiful girl, with an oval face and golden hair, and the most lovely violet eyes I ever saw. He was madly jealous of her, and, I believe, treated her very badly.”
I dare not ask anything more, but since then I have often wondered whether the doctor had murdered his fair young wife and buried her remains in the garden. This, however, is one of the mysteries that will never be revealed till the great day of judgment shall come, when the hidden secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed.
Needless to say I removed from the house without waiting for my three years’ tenancy to expire, for I felt that another such night would kill me. As I drove past the other day I saw that the “to let” card was still up at 19, Great Hanover street.
SIR HUGO’S PRAYER by G. B. Burgin
For invisible to thee,
Spirits twain have crossed with me.
—Uhland
I
“There’s no real pleasure in being a ghost nowadays, or nights either,” grumbled the shadowy presentment of Sir Hugo Follett, as he clanked along the battlements of Dulverton Castle, his imperceptible sword slanting ruthlessly through Lady Follett’s invisible legs.
Lady Follett apparently resented being amputated at her visionary knees in this unceremonious way. “Fie, Sir Hugo,” she said, testily, “Marry, come up. Wilt thou remember that, although only a ghost, I can still feel.”
Sir Hugo halted on the battlements with a shiver; for the night was cold and he lacked flesh wherewith to clothe his bones. “The truth is, my dear,” he said irresolutely, “it is no use talking in this stilted and archaic fashion any longer. We must adapt ourselves to the times, and model our language accordingly. Although we have been the terror of this place for centuries, no one cares a button for us now. Only one consolation is that we are mentioned with pride in the advertisement when Follett wants to let the place for the season. I flatter myself, however, that we have always performed our purgatorial duties with punctuality and despatch.”
“Quite so. Quite so.”
“Well, what happens?”
“Ah, ah, nothing happens,” sighed Lady Follett. “In fact, Hugo, we are becoming exceedingly dull; there’s no doubt whatever about that.”
“And the latest outrage—what d’you think’s the latest outrage we have to put up with?” bitterly demanded Sir Hugo.
“There are so many,” deplored his shadowy spouse, laying a ghostly mitten upon his phantom arm.
“Well the one consolation we had in our midnight promenade was that we could warm ourselves at the beacon cresset on the battlements here. Now, that economical old hunks, Follett, has cut off the beacon coals and substituted something which he calls electric light! It doesn’t give any warmth at all and one needs warmth after dozing all day in the family vault. Shameful lack of consideration for us, I call it. I’ve a good mind to rub you all over with corpse-lights and plant you at the top of Follett’s staircase, with blue snakes waggling about in your eye-sockets. That would give him a paralytic seizure if anything could.”
Lady Follett, who had been the handsomest woman of her day, bitterly resented Sir Hugo’s proposed additions to her toilette. “You never think of
appearances,” she said crossly. “The indelicacy of facing people in one’s bones doesn’t seem to have occurred to you. Besides, one would look so meagre.”
“There would be quite enough of you to give him a scare,” chuckled Sir Hugo. “It’s about time you got over the fad of appearing in family costume only. When I look at Follett’s guests, you seem quite out of fashion.”
“At least I hide my bones; most of his guests don’t,” tartly retorted the lady. “They all wear as little as possible.”
“It’s their love of naked truth,” airily suggested Sir Hugo.
“Naked fiddlesticks!” Lady Follett’s mood suddenly changed; she began to weep. “And yet they are alive! Oh, to be alive again, to feel the warmth of the dear sun, to rise at cock-crow instead of going to bed at it in a badly ventilated vault! Oh, for the touch of a warm living hand, to feel baby lips upon my own, to live again upon the sweet earth.” And ghostly tears fell from her sightless eyes.
“I—I—wouldn’t if I were you,” gruffly suggested Sir Hugo. “We had a good time of it when we were alive, and ruffled it with the best. Some day we’ll get out of this purgatorial stage and give old Follett a turn, the unconscionable dog. It’s ridiculous your wanting to be alive again. You’d have to go to school and learn to read and write.”
“I don’t think I should mind that much. If it came to sampler work I flat——”
Sir Hugo laid a phantom hand upon a phantom arm. “My dear, from what I gather when the young people come up here to flirt o’nights your sampler making would be as much out of date as my chain armour. One would be consigned to the lumber room, the other sold for scrap iron: and yet, with a little polishing, we should still be a fairly presentable couple.” He ruffled along with a gallant air in the moonlight. “Gad, but I’d pledge you in a bumper of sack had I the wherewithal to hold it,” he said mournfully. “Why so important a thing as a stomach should be left out of a ghost’s anatomy I know not. Hush, here’s someone coming.”
Lady Follett adjusted her imaginary headgear. “It is the damsel they call Clare,” she said, in a frigid whisper. “The minx has come up here to flirt.”
Sir Hugo was interested. “She’s devilish pret——”
“Hugo!”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” But Lady Follett’s icy tone sent a shiver down Sir Hugo’s spinal cord.
“I didn’t say anything. My teeth merely chattered.”
“Even a ghost has feelings,” acidly declared Lady Follett. “To hear you admire mere flesh and blood, like that red and white forward chit of a child, is more than I can endure.”
“A mistake I assure you. Take my arm. We will continue our promenade.”
They strolled leisurely along the broad level walk, Sir Hugo endeavouring to restrain his curiosity as to what Clare Follett was doing up there in the moonlight. “Let us get up behind this chimney-stack and see what’s going on,” he suggested. “She appears to be dragging a kind of double wheel with her.”
“She also appears to be dragging a young man after the wheel,” suggested Lady Follett, cautiously peeping from behind the sheltering chimney-stack, and quite forgetting that she was invisible until the midnight hour chimed from the castle tower.
“There’s another man with more wheels,” said Sir Hugo. “They surely can’t be going to start a carriage factory up here!”
“The things are called bicycles,” said Lady Follett.
“What’s a bicycle?” inquired Sir Hugo, resenting his wife’s superior knowledge. “Sh-sh! Here they come.”
II
Clare Follett was very pretty indeed; but what was she doing at the top of Dulverton Castle half-an-hour before midnight on Christmas Eve, accompanied by two young men, whose ill-concealed hatred of each other appeared to afford her a good deal of amusement. That this amusement was not wholly untinctured by anxiety was evident to Sir Hugo; for that ancient warrior, keenly versed in all matters pertaining to the sex, noticed that a tear glistened on her long lashes. At first, it seemed to him that this might be the result of the cold air; but when he saw Clare Follett furtively wipe away a tear from her other eye, and look appealingly round, his hand flew to his sword. He regretted bitterly that Lady Follett was there to check his chivalrous impulses, and that he could only look on inertly at this strange spectacle.
Miss Follett wore a very short cloth skirt and dainty little cap, whilst the young men were clad in knickerbockers. The lights of their bicycles twinkled like glow-worms, and their eyes glared malevolently at one another. As far as Sir Hugo could judge, the dark fellow looked like a hero; the fair man had a shifty expression, with cold, thin lips. His legs were enormous, his body thin and tough as an alligator’s. He swung his arms to and fro in a leisurely manner as if utterly unconcerned. The other young man, whose legs were not nearly as big, appeared rather more anxious. He bit at his long moustache and swore softly under his breath in a way which gladdened the heart of that old reprobate, Sir Hugo. It was a long time since he had heard anyone swear.
“There’s something up, my dear,” Sir Hugo remarked to Lady Follett. “It looks to me as if these fellows are in love with the girl, and that there’s going to be a row over it. I mean—ahem—that they will settle their differences with the sword.”
“Oh, no, they won’t,” Lady Follett declared: “not they. No one knows how to use a sword nowadays. I rather like that fair young fellow.”
“My dear! He looks like the biggest villain unhung. My sympathies are all with the dark man. He has such a frank, honest expression. In fact, he’s rather like what I was at his age.”
Lady Follett gave a little groan, which reached the group of bicyclists and made them stir uneasily. She was thinking of the time when young men had made their court to her. Of a verity it was dull work being a ghost. Oh, the dear earth and the joy of it!
“Beastly owls about somewhere,” said the fair man. “Might-eh-get ’em to umpire doncherknow, Miss Follett, and we’d catch ’em some beastly mice for their Christmas dinner.”
The girl looked at him fixedly, and not with favour. “I was made to consent to such a strange scheme,” she said hesitatingly. “What made you propose it, Mr. Fairfax?”
The fair man grinned in a way which showed his white teeth right up to the gum.
“Well, you see, Miss Follett, Pennell is such a scorcher and he thinks he can do everything, so I lured him on to make the proposal. Now that you’ve agreed to it, I’ll have him on toast.”
“Cannibal!” said Sir Hugo. “In my day we killed a rival; we didn’t eat him on toast.”
“Hush-h! You misunderstand. Listen.”
“Oh, shut up, Fairfax,” said the dark man, who was kneeling by the side of his bicycle and pumping at the tire. “You haven’t won yet.”
“Not yet,” said Fairfax, cheerfully. “Oh no, not yet. This little idea occurred to me several days ago, and I’ve been training hard every since. I’m fit to run for my life.”
“Shouldn’t think it’s the first time either,” said the other, wilfully misunderstanding him. “I’ll ask some of the men of your regiment next time I’m in town.”
Miss Follett gave an impetuous little stamp of her foot. “I’ve a great mind to go downstairs and end this nonsense at once.”
“I don’t think I would do it if I were you,” suggested Fairfax, with a nasty sneer. “People would say you were afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of my winning.”
“You haven’t won yet,” said Pennell, blowing his numbed fingers. “Now, Miss Follett, here’s your bike all ready. You’re to have thirty yards start round the battlements, and whoever catches you first is to win you for life.”
Miss Follett looked anxiously at his legs and drew him aside.
“Do you feel up to it?” she asked. “He’s evidently been training. You know how late you sat up with papa last night; that must have told on you.”
“I wanted to
win his heart, although I despaired about yours,” said Pennell hastily. “Miss Follett—Clare—the brute can’t see us—he’s messing about with his lamp. Give me one kiss and I’ll ride his head off or perish in the attempt.”
“The little dear!” said Sir Hugo in rapture. “She’s the love—”
“What’s that?” acidly demanded Lady Follett.
“My dear, this girl’s got your blood in her veins, and I’m da—— I mean may I materialise if I don’t help her to marry the dark young fellow. You may remember,” said the poor chivalrous old ghost, “I was dark once, my lady; and you were just like this girl, only lovelier, and with a statelier way. Gadzooks, I no more dared to kiss you—”
“Don’t, don’t, Hugo.” wailed the other poor ghost. “What can we do to help her?”
III
“Are you ready?” asked Fairfax, with his customary sneer. “It’s a mere matter of form, of course, unless Pennell would like to resign at——”
“Shut up,” said Pennell. “Now, Miss Follett, let me hold your bike. Be careful of the turn where the wall has crumbled a bit. Good-bye.”
“Let us say au revoir. Can you forgive me for being so utterly foolish?”
“Of course I can. If the beast should win, I’ll never forget you.”
“Don’t let us be all night about a mere trifle of this kind,” said Fairfax, with ironic emphasis.
“Now by the bones of my patron, St. Wencelaus,” growled Sir Hugo, “I’ll spit that churl through the midriff.”
“It’s no good,” said Lady Follett, beginning to weep ghostly tears as big as beans. “If you do stick your sword in him it will only come out on the other side.”
“They’re off,” said Sir Hugo, gnashing his fleshless gums together. “That girl will be over the battlements if she isn’t careful.”
“She sits on those little wheels and glides along like a bird,” said Lady Follett. “Methinks a palfrey were more seemly.”