Ghost

by Louise Welsh

  “It’s in there,” I said, pointing. “She, you know. The portrait is in there, too, hanging up on the place we took it from.”

  At that he laughed.

  “My dear fellow, this is mere nightmare,” he said.

  He pushed by me, and opened the door, I standing there simply inert with terror, unable to stop him, unable to move.

  “Phew! What an awful smell,” he said.

  Then there was silence; he had passed out of my sight behind the open door. Next moment he came out again, as white as myself, and instantly shut it.

  “Yes, the portrait’s there,” he said, “and on the floor is a thing – a thing spotted with earth, like what they bury people in. Come away, quick, come away.”

  How I got downstairs I hardly know. An awful shuddering and nausea of the spirit rather than of the flesh had seized me, and more than once he had to place my feet upon the steps, while every now and then he cast glances of terror and apprehension up the stairs. But in time we came to his dressing-room on the floor below, and there I told him what I have here described.

  The sequel can be made short; indeed, some of my readers have perhaps already guessed what it was, if they remember that inexplicable affair of the churchyard at West Fawley, some eight years ago, where an attempt was made three times to bury the body of a certain woman who had committed suicide. On each occasion the coffin was found in the course of a few days again protruding from the ground. After the third attempt, in order that the thing should not be talked about, the body was buried elsewhere in unconsecrated ground. Where it was buried was just outside the iron gate of the garden belonging to the house where this woman had lived. She had committed suicide in a room at the top of the tower in that house. Her name was Julia Stone.

  Subsequently the body was again secretly dug up, and the coffin was found to be full of blood.

  ON THE BRIGHTON ROAD

  Richard Middleton

  Richard Barham Middleton (1882–1911) was an English poet and author. He worked in London as a bank clerk. In order to overcome the boredom of his day job, he affected a bohemian life by night. Middleton suffered from severe depression, spending his last nine months in Brussels where he took his life, poisoning himself with chloroform.

  Slowly the sun had climbed up the hard white downs, till it broke with little of the mysterious ritual of dawn upon a sparkling world of snow. There had been a hard frost during the night, and the birds, who hopped about here and there with scant tolerance of life, left no trace of their passage on the silver pavements. In places the sheltered caverns of the hedges broke the monotony of the whiteness that had fallen upon the coloured earth, and overhead the sky melted from orange to deep blue, from deep blue to a blue so pale that it suggested a thin paper screen rather than illimitable space. Across the level fields there came a cold, silent wind which blew a fine dust of snow from the trees, but hardly stirred the crested hedges. Once above the skyline, the sun seemed to climb more quickly, and as it rose higher it began to give out a heat that blended with the keenness of the wind.

  It may have been this strange alternation of heat and cold that disturbed the tramp in his dreams, for he struggled for a moment with the snow that covered him, like a man who finds himself twisted uncomfortably in the bedclothes, and then sat up with staring, questioning eyes. “Lord! I thought I was in bed,” he said to himself as he took in the vacant landscape, “and all the while I was out here.” He stretched his limbs, and, rising carefully to his feet, shook the snow off his body. As he did so the wind set him shivering, and he knew that his bed had been warm.

  “Come, I feel pretty fit,” he thought. “I suppose I am lucky to wake at all in this. Or unlucky – it isn’t much of a business to come back to.” He looked up and saw the downs shining against the blue, like the Alps on a picture-postcard. “That means another forty miles or so, I suppose,” he continued grimly. “Lord knows what I did yesterday. Walked till I was done, and now I’m only about twelve miles from Brighton. Damn the snow, damn Brighton, damn everything!” The sun crept higher and higher, and he started walking patiently along the road with his back turned to the hills.

  “Am I glad or sorry that it was only sleep that took me, glad or sorry, glad or sorry?” His thoughts seemed to arrange themselves in a metrical accompaniment to the steady thud of his footsteps, and he hardly sought an answer to his question. It was good enough to walk to.

  Presently, when three milestones had loitered past, he overtook a boy who was stooping to light a cigarette. He wore no overcoat, and looked unspeakably fragile against the snow, “Are you on the road, guv’nor?” asked the boy huskily as he passed.

  “I think I am,” the tramp said.

  “Oh! Then I’ll come a bit of the way with you if you don’t walk too fast. It’s bit lonesome walking this time of day.”

  The tramp nodded his head, and the boy started limping along by his side.

  “I’m eighteen,” he said casually. “I bet you thought I was younger.”

  “Fifteen, I’d have said.”

  “You’d have backed a loser. Eighteen last August, and I’ve been on the road six years. I ran away from home five times when I was a little ’un, and the police took me back each time. Very good to me, the police was. Now I haven’t got a home to run away from.”

  “Nor have I,” the tramp said calmly.

  “Oh, I can see what you are,” the boy panted; “you’re a gentleman come down. It’s harder for you than for me.” The tramp glanced at the limping, feeble figure and lessened his pace.

  “I haven’t been at it as long as you have,” he admitted.

  “No, I could tell that by the way you walk. You haven’t got tired yet. Perhaps you expect something at the other end?”

  The tramp reflected for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said bitterly, “I’m always expecting things.”

  “You’ll grow out of that;” the boy commented. “It’s warmer in London, but it’s harder to come by grub. There isn’t much in it really.”

  “Still, there’s the chance of meeting somebody there who will understand—”

  “Country people are better,” the boy interrupted. “Last night I took a lease of a barn for nothing and slept with the cows, and this morning the farmer routed me out and gave me tea and toke because I was so little. Of course, I score there; but in London, soup on the Embankment at night, and all the rest of the time coppers moving you on.”

  “I dropped by the roadside last night and slept where I fell. It’s a wonder I didn’t die,” the tramp said. The boy looked at him sharply.

  “How did you know you didn’t?” he said.

  “I don’t see it,” the tramp said, after a pause.

  “I tell you,” the boy said hoarsely, “people like us can’t get away from this sort of thing if we want to. Always hungry and thirsty and dog-tired and walking all the while. And yet if anyone offers me a nice home and work my stomach feels sick. Do I look strong? I know I’m little for my age, but I’ve been knocking about like this for six years, and do you think I’m not dead? I was drowned bathing at Margate, and I was killed by a gypsy with a spike; he knocked my head and yet I’m walking along here now, walking to London to walk away from it again, because I can’t help it. Dead! I tell you we can’t get away if we want to.”

  The boy broke off in a fit of coughing, and the tramp paused while he recovered.

  “You’d better borrow my coat for a bit, Tommy,” he said, “your cough’s pretty bad.”

  “You go to hell!” the boy said fiercely, puffing at his cigarette; “I’m all right. I was telling you about the road. You haven’t got down to it yet, but you’ll find out presently. We’re all dead, all of us who’re on it, and we’re all tired, yet somehow we can’t leave it. There’s nice smells in the summer, dust and hay and the wind smack in your face on a hot day – and it’s nice waking up in the wet grass on a fine morning. I don’t know, I don’t know—” he lurched forward suddenly, and the tramp caught him i
n his arms.

  “I’m sick,” the boy whispered –“sick.”

  The tramp looked up and down the road, but he could see no houses or any sign of help. Yet even as he supported the boy doubtfully in the middle of the road a motor car suddenly flashed in the middle distance, and came smoothly through the snow.

  “What’s the trouble?” said the driver quietly as he pulled up. “I’m a doctor.” He looked at the boy keenly and listened to his strained breathing.

  “Pneumonia,” he commented. “I’ll give him a lift to the infirmary, and you, too, if you like.”

  The tramp thought of the workhouse and shook his head “I’d rather walk,” he said.

  The boy winked faintly as they lifted him into the car.

  “I’ll meet you beyond Reigate,” he murmured to the tramp. “You’ll see.” And the car vanished along the white road.

  All the morning the tramp splashed through the thawing snow, but at midday he begged some bread at a cottage door and crept into a lonely barn to eat it. It was warm in there, and after his meal he fell asleep among the hay. It was dark when he woke, and started trudging once more through the slushy roads.

  Two miles beyond Reigate a figure, a fragile figure, slipped out of the darkness to meet him.

  “On the road, guv’nor?” said a husky voice. “Then I’ll come a bit of the way with you if you don’t walk too fast. It’s a bit lonesome walking this time of day.”

  “But the pneumonia!” cried the tramp, aghast.

  “I died at Crawley this morning,” said the boy.

  HOW IT HAPPENED

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was born in Edinburgh and is best remembered as the creator of the detective Sherlock Holmes. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University where one of his tutors, Dr Joseph Bell, helped to inspire the character of Holmes. In 1928, Conan Doyle helped free Oscar Slater, a German Jew wrongly convicted of murder. Doyle was a fervent believer in spiritualism. After his death his wife and various spiritualist groups claimed to have made contact with his spirit.

  She was a writing medium. This is what she wrote:

  I can remember some things upon that evening most distinctly, and others are like some vague, broken dreams. That is what makes it so difficult to tell a connected story. I have no idea now what it was that had taken me to London and brought me back so late. It just merges into all my other visits to London. But from the time that I got out at the little country station everything is extraordinarily clear. I can live it again – every instant of it.

  I remember so well walking down the platform and looking at the illuminated clock at the end which told me that it was half-past eleven. I remember also my wondering whether I could get home before midnight. Then I remember the big motor, with its glaring headlights and glitter of polished brass, waiting for me outside. It was my new thirty-horse-power Robur, which had only been delivered that day. I remember also asking Perkins, my chauffeur, how she had gone, and his saying that he thought she was excellent.

  “I’ll try her myself,” said I, and I climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “The gears are not the same,” said he. “Perhaps, sir, I had better drive.”

  “No; I should like to try her,” said I.

  And so we started on the five-mile drive for home.

  My old car had the gears as they used always to be in notches on a bar. In this car you passed the gear-lever through a gate to get on the higher ones. It was not difficult to master, and soon I thought that I understood it. It was foolish, no doubt, to begin to learn a new system in the dark, but one often does foolish things and one has not always to pay the full price for them. I got along very well until I came to Claystall Hill. It is one of the worst hills in England, a mile and a half long and one in six in places, with three fairly sharp curves. My park gate stands at the very foot of it upon the main London road.

  We were just over the brow of this hill, where the grade is steepest; when the trouble began. I had been on the top speed and wanted to get her on the free; but she stuck between gears, and I had to get her back on the top again. By this time she was going at a great rate, so I clapped on both brakes, and one after the other they gave way. I didn’t mind so much when I felt my footbrake snap, but when I put all my weight on my side-brake, and the lever clanged to its full limit without a catch, it brought a cold sweat out of me. By this time we were fairly tearing down the slope. The lights were brilliant, and I brought her round the first curve all right. Then we did the second one, though it was a close shave for the ditch. There was a mile of straight then with the third curve beneath it and after that the gate of the park. If I could shoot into that harbour all would be well, for the slope up to the house would bring her to a stand.

  Perkins behaved splendidly. I should like that to be known. He was perfectly cool and alert. I had thought at the very beginning of taking the bank, and he read my intention.

  “I wouldn’t do it, sir,” said he. “At this pace it must go over and we should have it on the top of us.”

  Of course he was right. He got to the electric switch and had it off, so we were in the free; but we were still running at a fearful pace. He laid his hands on the wheel.

  “I’ll keep her steady,” said he, “if you care to jump and chance it. We can never get round that curve. Better jump, sir.”

  “No,” said I; “I’ll stick it out. You can jump if you like.”

  “I’ll stick it with you, sir,” said he.

  If it had been the old car I should have jammed the gear-lever into the reverse and seen what would happen. I expect she would have stripped her gears or smashed up somehow, but it would have been a chance. As it was, I was helpless. Perkins tried to climb across, but you couldn’t do it going at that pace. The wheels were whirring like a high wind and the big body creaking and groaning with the strain. But the lights were brilliant, and one could steer to an inch. I remember thinking what an awful and yet majestic sight we should appear to anyone who met us. It was a narrow road and we were just a great, roaring, golden death to anyone who came in our path.

  We got round the corner with one wheel three feet high upon the bank. I thought we were surely over, but after staggering for a moment she righted and darted onwards. That was the third corner and the last one. There was only the park gate now. It was facing us but, as luck would have it, not facing us directly. It was about twenty yards to the left up the main road into which we ran. Perhaps I could have done it, but I expect that the steering-gear had been jarred when we ran on the bank. The wheel did not turn easily. We shot out of the lane. I saw the open gate on the left. I whirled round my wheel with all the strength of my wrists. Perkins and I threw our bodies across, and then the next instant, going at fifty miles an hour, my right wheel struck full on the righthand pillar of my own gate. I heard the crash. I was conscious of flying through the air, and then – and then – !

  When I became aware of my own existence once more I was among some brushwood in the shadow of the oaks upon the lodge side of the drive. A man was standing beside me. I imagined at first that it was Perkins, but when I looked again I saw that it was Stanley, a man whom I had known at college some years before, and for whom I had a really genuine affection. There was always something peculiarly sympathetic to me in Stanley’s personality; and I was proud to think that I had some similar influence upon him. At the present moment I was surprised to see him, but I was like a man in a dream, giddy and shaken and quite prepared to take things as I found them without questioning them.

  “What a smash!” I said. “Good Lord, what an awful smash!”

  He nodded his head, and even in the gloom I could see that he was smiling the gentle, wistful smile which I connected with him.

  I was quite unable to move. Indeed, I had not any desire to try to move. But my senses were exceedingly alert. I saw the wreck of the motor lit up by the moving lanterns. I saw the little group of people and heard the hushed voices. There
were the lodge-keeper and his wife, and one or two more. They were taking no notice of me, but were very busy round the car. Then suddenly I heard a cry of pain.

  “The weight is on him. Lift it easy,” cried a voice.

  “It’s only my leg!” said another one, which I recognised as Perkins’s. “Where’s master?” he cried.

  “Here I am,” I answered, but they did not seem to hear me. They were all bending over something which lay in front of the car.

  Stanley laid his hand upon my shoulder, and his touch was inexpressibly soothing. I felt light and happy, in spite of all.

  “No pain, of course?” said he.

  “None,” said I.

  “There never is,” said he.

  And then suddenly a wave of amazement passed over me. Stanley! Stanley! Why, Stanley had surely died of enteric at Bloemfontein in the Boer War!

  “Stanley!” I cried, and the words seemed to choke my throat – “Stanley, you are dead.”

  THE BOWMEN

  Arthur Machen

  Arthur Machen (1863–1947) was born Arthur Llewelyn Jones, but adopted his wife’s surname in order to inherit a legacy. He grew up in Gwent, and the landscape and folklore of his childhood were a continuing influence upon his fiction. Machen’s life was shadowed by poverty. After failing to qualify for medical school he made his living as a journalist, publisher, tutor and actor. In 1943, in an attempt to ease Machen’s financial difficulties, a group of writers launched a literary appeal for his eightieth birthday.

  It was during the retreat of the eighty thousand, and the authority of the censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But it was on the most awful day of that awful time, on the day when ruin and disaster came so near that their shadow fell over London far away; and, without any certain news, the hearts of men failed within them and grew faint; as if the agony of the army in the battlefield had entered into their souls.

  On this dreadful day, then, when three hundred thousand men in arms with all their artillery swelled like a flood against the little English company, there was one point above all other points in our battle line that was for a time in awful danger, not merely of defeat, but of utter annihilation. With the permission of the censorship and of the military expert, this corner may, perhaps, be described as a salient, and if this angle were crushed and broken, then the English force as a whole would be shattered, the Allied left would be turned, and Sedan would inevitably follow.