At first the Quilters — except Mr. Quilter, who was asleep — were seriously disturbed by the discovery; and ere long, as was natural, their anxious inquiries brought them information of the earlier history of their house. But days and nights went on and nothing occurred to justify their fears — there was nothing but that weird light in the empty attic, which gave them no inconvenience at all. So that soon they grew rather proud of the phenomenon, and brought their friends to see it. One or two bold spirits among these friends ventured into the luminous chamber by night; and the reports of each visit agreed precisely with the others. The strange light pervaded the whole room — all agreed on this point. It was like no light any witness had ever seen; persons standing in it were plainly enough visible to each other, but with a pallor and a certain dimness of outline that admitted but of one description: they looked like ghosts. Indeed it would seem as though the illumination did not consist of light, as human experience knows it, but rather of something which not only lighted persons and objects in the room but also interposed between them.
Withal, it cast no shadow. This was, perhaps, its most remarkable quality. If one carried a candle into the room the objects it lighted cast their shadows in a natural way, though, of course, owing to the pervading luminousness the shadows were very feeble. But without any such artificial light no shadow was thrown, of anything, anywhere. The light, whatever it was, was all-pervading. And whatever it was it so affected the atmosphere that it was difficult to breathe therein.
The Misses Quilter became ardent spiritualists. They brought expert friends from London, who arranged séances in the astonishingly furnished rooms, and accomplished nothing. The failure was unprecedented, and the experts were wholly at fault. Not a table would move, not a mark would appear on a slate — and that in this ancient haunt of spectres, Missel Hall! The science of spiritualism was shaken to its foundations.
After much anxious consultation the experts resolved on a fresh expedient, and thereby made possible one of the most curious demonstrations recorded in the history of their craft. At the head of a small sheet of paper the question was written: What causes the light in the east wing attic? This paper, with a pencil, was enclosed in a small box, and the box was placed inside the lighted room and there left, with the door shut.
At the end of ten minutes the box was withdrawn, and, the paper being examined, it was found to carry below the question the almost illegibly scrawled word: Terror.
A fresh paper was prepared with the amended question: What is the light?
By the same process, and after a similar interval, another reply was elicited. This time it read, somewhat ungrammatically: Only us. Crowded like — (remainder illegible).
This reply caused much interest and excitement among the experts. A fresh question was prepared and answered, and others after that, as are transcribed below.
Question. — Do you mean you are the ghosts that haunt this house?
Answer. — Yes. We apologize. Take them away (illegible words follow).
Q. — Please answer more clearly.
A. — Take them away. We are squashed into a mass and terrified to death. We really do apologize!
Q. For what do you apologize?
A. — Everything. Anything. Only take them away. We apologize for haunting this house and frightening people. We will never do it again; we have been frightened too much ourselves. We’ve all gone through a good deal, but never anything like this. We can’t stand it. There’s only this room left, and we are crowded solid. We dare not come out. It is terrible.
Q. — What terrifies you?
A. — All of it! Furniture! Snakes! Fireworks! Cauliflowers! Tentacles! Curlywigs! Jim-jams! Sacks and touzly wigs! Pray do something for us.
Q. — What must we do?
A. (an almost undecipherable mass of ragged scrawls, apparently from many different hands in all sorts of directions on both sides of paper). — Take them away...Benton...raise rent...Apologize...Never frighten people any more...Know what it is ourselves now...never expected this...Worse things than us...Help! Police... (rest wholly illegible.
These mysterious words are all the explanation extant of the amazing phenomenon of the Luminous Room. Answers to succeeding questions were wholly unreadable, and in the end the experts gave up their attempts to unravel the mystery.
It is a fact, nevertheless, that since the Quilters have left Missel Hall (they have been gone six months now) the strange light has wholly disappeared from the attic and it has not been followed by any of the more ordinary terrors which preceded it; a fact that, it is said, will shortly be cited in a paper to be read before a spiritualistic congress and adduced as a proof that ghosts may be relied on to keep their promises, even when extorted under stress of deadly terror.
MR. BOSTOCK’S BACK-SLIDING
IT is a terribly easy thing to fall into — imperceptibly to glide into — evil-doing; and once embarked on the slippery descent, there is no telling how low one may descend. This, the moral of the story of Mr. Bostock, is, in accordance with modern practice, placed at the beginning of the story instead of at the end, which our grandfathers considered the proper place. Nowadays we get the moral over and out of the way as soon as possible, and find it good riddance.
Mr. Bostock was a person of that peculiar stainlessness which is only to be observed in a London suburb of the highest respectability, always in association with the precisely correct clothes for every occasion, and a comfortable income derived somehow from the City. He was no longer young, nor slim, and his large, clean-shaven countenance carried the heavy portentousness noticeable in the Strictly Proper. Regularity, Propriety, Serene Importance — these words could be traced across his white waistcoat and his pink face as distinctly as though spelt in printed letters; and Severe Respectability shone like a halo from the high polish of his crown.
Every admirer of the female sex — every discriminating person, in other words — will at once perceive that there was a Mrs. Bostock to whom much or all of this perfection was due; indeed, the ribald of his suburb ascribed Mr. Bostock’s correctitude to simple terror of his wife. This was the slander of vulgar malice, of course, but it is a fact that Mrs. Bostock was a lady well fitted to inspire terror in the unregenerate; and those whom she regarded as her social inferiors — which meant very nearly everybody — had reason to quail before her overbearing majesty.
Twenty-four years of training under Mrs. Bostock’s severe eye had endowed Mr. Bostock with the shining qualities so vastly respected in his suburb, and of late her supervision had been reinforced by that of their two daughters, now grown up. It may be that it is not permitted to mere man to receive a greater share of this sort of blessing than can be conferred by an energetic wife and one full-grown daughter; that the gradual accession of assistance from another daughter, as she reaches womanhood, will overcome the fortitude of the most respectable. It is certain that Mr. Bostock’s lapse occurred shortly after Julia, his second daughter — now arrived near marriageable age — had fully ranged herself by the side of her mamma and her sister in the direction of his comportment.
The family were staying at the seaside at the proper period of late summer, and, of course, at the proper place. The town is already sufficiently well advertised, so here I shall call it Scarbourne, which is not in the least like its real name. Everybody will readily recognize it, however, from the circumstance that it is the most genteel town on the English coast, where every male visitor positively must change all his clothes at least three times a day, and no lady must be seen to wear anything twice. Also, the promenade is the one place for pedestrian exercise, and the vulgar act of walking on the beach is never condoned. No place on earth basks in a more sacred odor of perfect respectability than this blessed spot, with nothing to mar its bliss but the presence of a vulgar convict prison a few miles inland, and the fact that the aproach by railway lies through another seaside town of the most unpardonable description, where parents paddle on the sands among their childr
en, and the air resounds to the banjo and tambourine of the nefarious nigger. It is said that the Scarbourne visitors barely forgave the King for the proximity of His Majesty’s prison, and that only in consideration of his social position; but the railway company might beg forgiveness in vain for bringing their line through Beachpool-on-Sea.
Mr. Bostock’s temptation came insidiously yet suddenly, giving him little time for choice. There was some expectation that the office in the City, which provided the means for Mr. Bostock’s respectability, might require his presence for a day or two in the midst of his vacation; and there was hourly expectation of a telegram from his head clerk to call him. Mr. Bostock was somewhat puzzled, almost shocked, to detect himself looking forward to the receipt of the telegram with something vastly like pleasurable anticipation; and with this begins the tale of his backsliding.
A telegram did come, immediately after breakfast on a brilliant August morning. Mr. Bostock tore it open eagerly. It was from his chief clerk, indeed; but — it conveyed the news that the matter in question had been satisfactorily settled, and that Mr. Bostock’s presence in London would not be required. Mr. Bostock sank back in his easy-chair in a frame of mind which he distinctly recognized as one of gloomy dejection.
Mrs. Bostock and her daughters were dressing for a morning drive in the jobbed carriage that conveyed them everywhere, except for the promenade walk; and as Mr. Bostock sat back with the telegram in his hand his wife appeared, patting and smoothing her gloves.
“Oh — that telegram has come, then,” observed Mrs. Bostock. “Then we’ll ask Mrs. Berkeley Wiggs to take your seat, and we’ll drive out a little when I’ve done some shopping in the town. I suppose you’ll catch the ten-thirteen?”
Here was Mr. Bostock’s temptation, and here began his fall. “Y — yes!” he stammered, hastily, crumpling up the telegram and stuffing it away in his pocket. “Yes! I’ll — I’ll catch the ten-thirteen, of course. Too late for the fast train, of course. Of course. Yes, my dear — I’ll go off and catch the ten-thirteen. Don’t bother about me — I’ll walk, or have a cab. Yes — of course, I must catch the ten-thirteen!”
A very easy thing, the fall of Mr. Bostock. You will observe that he said nothing as to the contents of the telegram — not a word. Mrs. Bostock assumed that the message was the one expected, and her husband merely allowed her the assumption. Almost anybody might have done the same thing — accidentally, as it were. And, in fact, Mr. Bostock hardly realized what he had done till Mrs. Bostock had departed in search of Mrs. Berkeley Wiggs; the most recent accession to her acquaintance, and Socially Immense.
Even when he did fully realize the position of affairs Mr. Bostock betrayed no symptom of remorse. His behavior, indeed, for the next hour or so diverged every minute farther and farther from the precedent set by twenty-four years of strict regularity. He took a cab to the railway station, and during the short ride his demeanor so changed that the startled cabman scarcely recognized his fare as he emerged. Mr. Bostock’s hat had settled over at a jaunty angle, and Mr. Bostock’s face had acquired a joyous, almost a waggish, expression. A shade of apprehension crossed it as he approached the booking-office window and glanced nervously about him. Then he plunged his head deep in at the little hole, and demanded his ticket in a voice inaudible from without. He took his seat in the ten-thirteen train, just as he said he would; but — and here you may begin the measure of Mr. Bostock’s backsliding — he got out at Beachpool-on-Sea!
Not without some nervousness and trepidation, it is true; for the habit of twenty-four years is hard to shake off. But once out in the High Street of Beachpool, Mr. Bostock’s gradual expansion was a wonderful thing to see. He put his hands in his trousers pockets, he put his hat positively at the back of his head, and at the end of the street, by the sea, he bought a cane and swung it!
Mr. Bostock was taking a little holiday “on his own,” as the vulgar say. How long he was going to stay, what arrangements he should make, and all the rest of it he had as yet thought nothing of. Here he was, free and irresponsible, at Beachpool, where nobody knew him, and ready for a holiday after twenty-four years’ respectability. He went back to the shop where he bought the cane, and there bought a pipe and an ounce of tobacco. Mrs. Bostock had never allowed him to smoke anything less respectable than a cigar since they were married. Sometimes she had even bought the cigars herself. Perhaps I should not have mentioned this last circumstance, since it is far from my design to arouse sympathy for the perverted Bostock.
As for him, he grew wilder at every step along the beach. For he walked along the sands here like any low tripper, and once he actually “skated” an oyster-shell along the water — not very well. Then he stopped to listen to a group of niggers, and even laughed — laughed aloud — at a song about a “missis” and a mother-in-law, and put twopence in the tambourine rathen than go away before it was finished. And as he went on among the children digging sand and their elders devouring fruit and buns, he burst into little gasps of laughter at nothing whatever, and was barely able to repress an insane desire to dance in public. The desire grew so urgent, indeed, that he walked straight on along the beach, past the last of the family groups, and into the solitude beyond. Here the cliffs began, and the shore was strewn with large stones, which presently gave place to boulders.
Mr. Bostock was two miles from Beachpool, and absolutely alone with the cliffs, the boulders, and the sea. He took a cautious glance about him, laughed aloud twice, and burst into the most astonishing fandango ever executed by an elderly gentleman having no connection with the stage. Then he plucked the hat from his head, flung it at his feet, and kicked it over the nearest boulder. Mr. Bostock had utterly thrown off the mask!
He picked his hat up, however, with some solicitude, and sat on the boulder to restore its shape. Then he held it at arm’s length and laughed at it, loud and long. No hat of Mr. Bostock’s had endured such derision before.
He clapped it on the side of his head, stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and gazed out over the sea, chuckling. The great green water was beautiful and smooth and soft, and the day was warm. Mr. Bostock had not had a swim for years; Mrs. Bostock did not consider the exercise suitable to his dignity and his years, nor, indeed, the costume to his figure.
He had no bathing costume now, but did that really matter? There was not a soul in sight, nor likely to be one. The nearest person at Beachpool was two miles off, and Scarbourne was quite seven miles away. There was the towel difficulty, of course; but Mr. Bostock had a mind above difficulties just now, and a towel was a trifle beneath his soaring notice. As a boy he had run about to get dry, and now he chanced to have two big, clean pocket-handkerchiefs. Mr. Bostock was tuned up for a wild adventure, and this was the wildest he could think of. He took one more look along the deserted shore and up at the silent cliffs, and began to pull off his clothes.
There never was such a delightful swim as Mr. Bostock indulged in from that deserted shore. There were cool, transparent pools among the rocks that dotted the shore, and farther out there was just enough motion in the water to save monotony. The air was warm and the water of a pleasant coolness, for as yet the sun had not brought it to its full summer-day temperature. And all the while not a soul came in sight along the shore. From time to time Mr. Bostock glanced back to the solitary dark speck among the boulders which he knew to be his heap of clothes, and he saw it always quite safe.
So time went, while Mr. Bostock, from time to time floating on his back and gazing thoughtfully into the blue of the sky above, revolved in his mind scandalous fraudulent plans for the future, whereby forged telegrams from the office should procure him more holidays like this. Thus does fancied impunity embolden the evil-doer.
Still, delightful as that swim was, Mr. Bostock realized that he must come out of the water sooner or later, and at length he turned and headed for the shore, marking his course by the little dark spot where he had left his clothes. He came in slowly and easily, dreading no evil.
The tide had risen a little, and he congratulated himself on getting in in time to save his clothes a possible wetting, a danger he had not considered, in the excitement of the adventure. He rose from the water’s edge, grasped the boulder, took two tender steps on the shingle — and instantly rushed back into the sea and swam off as hard as he could go.
In the whole course of his hitherto exemplary life Mr. Bostock had never had such a shock — such a horrible, stunning surprise. The clothes were not his!
But this alone was a comparative trifle. For what had sent Mr. Bostock staggering back as from the charge of a bull, what had propelled him headlong into the sea and set him swimming as though the bull had turned into a shark, was the appalling fact that he had found himself confronted with a heap of female garments!
There seemed to be no possible mistake. It was a black, rusty-looking heap, with a rather disorganized bonnet and a pair of cloth-topped boots of the sort called “jemimas,” down at heel, bulgy at the toes, and very loose and frilly about the elastic sides. It seemed, in short, the outfit of the sort of elderly female for whom the only word is “geezer.”
A little way out from the shore Mr. Bostock ventured to turn about and tread water. Surely that was the boulder on which he had left his clothes? They had been quite visible from the sea, as he distinctly remembered, and now the only heap of clothes in sight was the heap he had just fled from, lying precisely in the same spot. There was not a soul in sight, nor any human belonging except that heap of clothes on the boulder. Nobody was visible on the water, nobody on the shore. Mr. Bostock swam in a little way, till he could stand on the sandy bottom, with his head and shoulders above water, and then, remembering the expedient of Mr. Pickwick in the wrong bedroom at Ipswich, called out very loudly, “Ha — hum!”
Mr. Bostock waited for an answer, but heard nothing but the sea, and saw nothing but that and the shore and the dark heap of clothes before him.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 256