Ghosts by Gaslight

by Jack Dann

  She refused my stocking with a humble little gesture. Once, in Calcutta, I saw a child offer a beggar a stone; the beggar’s gesture was the same. “What is it you wish?” I asked. She seemed to endeavour to speak. No sound issued from her lips, not so much as a sigh.

  “I shall do whatever you wish,” I told her, “but I must first know what it is.” By that time I was, I believe, regaining some shreds of self-possession. Fearfully, she indicated the darning needle, which was at that time still thrust through the worsted. I removed it and offered it to her.

  She backed away, clearly frightened, and I recalled that the fairies were said, by those who feigned to credit them, to fear cold iron. I made as if to throw it out the window, but she hastened to prevent it. “What would you have me do?” I enquired, at which she mimed for me the thrusting of the needle into a forefinger.

  I did. She bent and kissed my finger. The sensation was far beyond my meagre powers of description. At length she straightened up, licked her lips, and smiled. She had been moonlight before, as I have said. She was candlelight now, or rather, like the light of a candelabrum; she might almost have been a true woman, a living woman. You may think when you read this that you comprehend all that I have said, yet I beg leave to doubt it.

  I offered my one poor chair, saying, “Will you not sit?”

  “Thank you for speaking.” She smiled again. “Won’t you take it yourself? You must feel weak after giving so much strength to me.” The golden bells of an elfin steeple beyond Land’s End—should such a thing exist—could not have spoken more sweetly.

  “I will sit on my bed if you seat yourself, madam,” I replied. “I could not possibly sit in the presence of a lady who was standing.”

  “Then sit I shall!” She suited her actions to these words; and the old chair, which always creaked abominably when supporting my weight, uttered not a sound.

  I asked whether she did not wish some service of me, for it appeared to me, my initial awe having passed, that she would scarcely have mounted two pairs of stairs to a garret save she desired my assistance.

  “You are a gentleman,” she said, “which makes it all the better; but let me first say that I could not have entered this chamber at all had you not invited me in your dreams. Nor could I have spoken had you not addressed me.”

  “You are welcome here at any time,” I told her.

  “Thank you, Brooks. It is an honour, one of which I am truly appreciative.” This was said with no hint of levity. “However, I must inform you that I can now enter whenever I wish. From those who invite us once, no second invitation is required. I can never speak, however, unless you invite it. That is the law.”

  I well understood; our own situation is, as a moment’s reflection will show, quite similar. When the matter is urgent, we must clear our throats or cough in the hope that we will be addressed.

  “You may have heard my name, or so I flatter myself. I am called Alice Landon. It is not unfamiliar to you?”

  “Always with praise,” I replied, “though that praise has done little to prepare me for the perfection I observe at the present moment. But if you will allow it, Miss Landon?”

  “Speak.”

  “You were so kind as to style me a gentleman, this although I am, as you surely know, only what is called a gentleman’s gentleman.”

  She laughed again—that thrilling sound. “Why, a gentleman’s gentleman is a gentleman twice over, surely. Our dear Queen is waited upon by women who are styled ladies-in-waiting. Do you imagine they are not ladies-in-actuality? They would be dismissed at once. No, you are a gentleman, and I am a ghost. Does that surprise you?”

  “It horrifies me,” I confessed, “although I guessed it long before. Even though I have heard your name more than once, you were always named as a living lady. Many must bitterly regret your passing, and I count myself among them.”

  “Allow me to relieve your grief. I am at the present moment still alive, though I shan’t live out this pleasant weather.”

  “If you are not yet gone . . . ?”

  “The explanation is easily given, yet difficult to comprehend.” She rose sighing and went to the open window. “Indeed, Brooks, I must confess that I myself comprehend it only imperfectly. It will assist us, perhaps, if you are familiar with a tale much read at Christmas. Dickens is the author’s name.” She turned to face me, smiling. “He is the man who composed The Pickwick Papers, unless I am greatly mistaken.”

  I had risen when she rose. “I have never read those, I fear. Do you intend the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and Marley’s ghost?”

  “Yes. Precisely that. I’m happy to find you familiar with it.”

  “I heard it read,” I explained. “My master was asked to spend the holiday at the home of Sir Edward Darby. The tale was read while Sir Edward’s guests were seated around the table, and we were permitted to stand behind and listen if we wished. I did, having no work to do just then and thinking it possible my master might require some service.”

  She smiled; it is a strange woman who is not made more beautiful by a smile. “You are familiar with it at least. You must recall that there were several ghosts.”

  “I do,” I replied. “I was struck most particularly by that of Mr. Scrooge’s former partner. Mr. Marley’s ghost seemed to me a most unpleasant—ah . . .”

  “Apparition?”

  “Yes, a fearful apparition if I may say it. You . . .” I was seized by a cough.

  “Marley was a most unpleasing person,” Miss Landon confided. “I am somewhat different, or so I hope. Three spectres visited Mr. Scrooge subsequently. Can you name them?”

  “Not precisely, perhaps. There was the Ghost of the current Christmas, by which I mean that of the Christmas we were then celebrating.”

  “And the others?”

  “One who returned, if I may so phrase it, Mr. Scrooge to Christmases he had celebrated many years ago. After him, I believe there came a third ghost who vouchsafed him a view of a Christmas that had not yet been.”

  “Excellent!” Her smile warmed me. “We ghosts are constrained by certain laws; you know of that, for I have already explained a pair of those to you. We are freed, however, from the domination of certain others. You living are permitted only one specific time: the present. You can act in the present, or you cannot act. To plan to act in the future is not to act but only to intend it. As for the past, it is beyond your reach.”

  I nodded. “There is much there that I would change if I could.”

  “You have only the present,” she repeated. “This moment, and nothing more; for us there is Eternity.”

  I said, “I don’t believe I understand that, Miss Landon.”

  “Understand Eternity, Brooks? Why, neither do I! No one understands it, nor ever will. It is the place outside all time, and the place that surrounds all time. Because we are there, we can observe all time, and even visit any time we wish.”

  “Can you tell me whether I shall ever marry? And to whom, if I shall?”

  “I could learn these things, but I will not. They are kept from you for good reasons—”

  The great clock downstairs had begun to toll the hour of twelve, and so silent was the house at that hour, and so silent the night itself, that the measured strokes of its steel hammer upon its sounding gong were distinctly audible in my garret.

  “I must go.” Miss Landon hastened to my window. “You need not throw up the sash for me, Brooks. You are a most estimable man. I shall see you anon, and you shall have your reward.”

  After that, as may well be believed, I did all that I could conceive of to learn all that I could regarding Miss Landon. She was, it transpired, the only daughter of a physician who had in addition three stalwart sons, her older brothers. Dr. Landon practiced in Windermere and owned a town house there; he had also, by inheritance, a country house built by his father at the edge of the fells and by him styled Cauldwell Grange. I never learned the reason, assuming that one existed, for this appellation; nor did I m
ake any great effort to do so.

  Several descriptions I had of Miss Landon, all more or less accurate. There would be little point in giving them here, since I was soon to see her for myself. She was at that time of marriageable age but not greatly sought after; such suitors as she had were said to be tradesmen’s sons and the like. This last I had from my master’s father’s man, Peter Hugh, who added that Sir Walter thought Miss Landon rather too forward. “As for me,” Hugh added with a shrug, “I think her daft.”

  Naturally I endeavoured to learn the basis for this opinion, but he would say no more upon the topic.

  It was the very next day, I believe, that my master consulted me regarding a gift for his mother. “The old girl’s birthday,” he told me, “will be upon us before we know it, and I must not neglect my duty towards her. The old chap means to invite all manner of guests. How would it look if everyone showers her with silks and laces and all manner of nonsense, while I give her nothing?”

  I acknowledged that it would look very bad indeed, thinking furiously all the while.

  “Can’t you suggest something, Brooks? I gave her a picnic hamper last year, and she liked it or said she did; but I can scarcely give her another.”

  By that time I had hit upon an idea. “Allow me a day or two, sir,” I told him, “and I shall be able to advise you to some purpose.”

  That very evening I contrived to sit beside Lady Margaret’s maid at our supper in the kitchen. It was far from difficult to steer our conversation toward the great dinner planned for The Day, all the extra work that would be involved, Lady Margaret’s ever more frequent shopping trips, and the visits of her dressmaker.

  “There was the prettiest little book in Cobbler & Bowen’s,” the maid confided. “All white it was, and gold everywhere. She wanted it ever so much, only then she said what would the master say to paying so much for a little book and put it back.”

  Thus I was able to tell my own master that a certain collection of the works of the celebrated poetess Elizabeth Browning, a volume in bleached calf with gilt edges, would make an eminently satisfactory gift. Together we journeyed to Windermere; it was still in the shop, and he purchased it forthwith.

  He was in so fine a mood thereafter that I made bold to broach the matter of Miss Landon, asking whether she would be at Lady Margaret’s dinner. He pretended to know nothing of her; the pinchbeck falsity of his disclaimer shone like brass, and so it was that I ventured a statement of the same kidney, saying that it was alleged among the servants that he and Miss Landon were soon to wed.

  “Oh,” said he, “you intended Miss Alice Landon? I had supposed you spoke of an older sister. I have met her, but as for intending her, there is little enough to recommend her to any man.”

  “Then she will not be at the dinner, sir?”

  “Well now,” he replied with a feigned indifference, “I’ve no way of knowing. The mater has seen the lady’s pater regarding some complaint or other, faintness from tight lacing if I were to guess; so the Landons may have been invited. I really wouldn’t know.”

  Recollecting the ghost, I remarked that Miss Landon possessed good features, and he shrugged. “If you care for blotches, she’ll do well enough, I suppose. Yellow hair and blue eyes give her some charm from a distance. That much I’ll allow.”

  I scratched my head.

  “What puzzles you so, Brooks?”

  I said, “Why, I had heard that you and she were to be united next summer, sir, and now I cannot imagine what gave rise to so absurd a report.”

  “Nor can I. She’s a bit daft, they say, and hasn’t a farthing. Oh, I’ve spoken to her and danced, and all that. One must have a partner for the waltzes, and most of these country misses outweigh the white heifer.”

  “She has no prospects then?”

  He laughed. He had a most hearty and most engaging laugh, sir; I feel that I can hear it even as we speak. “From a medico?” he asked. “And there are four brothers.”

  I ventured a few further questions, but learned little of substance. Needless to say, I awaited the dinner, and the dancing which was to follow it, styled by some a ball, with the highest interest. For reasons I cannot explain, I felt confident that Miss Landon’s ghost should not trouble me until I had seen Miss Landon in the flesh. In that, I was wholly mistaken, for I woke to find her bending over my bed.

  “The time grows short,” she said. “I’ve tried to come to you before, Brooks, but was prevented.”

  “N-n-not b-by me, I hope, madam,” I ventured, and at once discovered that my teeth chattered.

  She gave my question no heed. “I must soon die, save you prevent it. Will you not save me?”

  I nodded, though fumbling for the matches I had placed next to my lamp.

  “You are not going to light that, I hope. I’d thought better of you.”

  “I fear I dream. I wish to see if it be so.” Even as I spoke, I struck a match on the floorboard; she weakened and backed away from its flare of light and hellish smoke.

  “And will you light the gas, beast?”

  That was my purpose; rising from my bed, I turned the valve and applied the flame.

  “Do you dream, or no?”

  Though I could no longer see her, I had heard her voice. “I do not dream,” I conceded. “Where are you?”

  “Not in hell, the place to which you would consign me if you could.” Her tone was despairing.

  “I would consign no soul to hell,” I said.

  “In that, you differ from God, Brooks. Would you save a soul from hell if you could?”

  “Who would not?”

  “Millions. Extinguish the light and I shall show you how it may be done.”

  “No, madam.” I shook my head.

  “Then I must tell you, and that only. First, I must tell you that I seek to save my own life. You saw me in this very chamber not so long ago. Did you think me young and fair?”

  “Very much so, Miss Landon.”

  “So I will die, Brooks, save you prevent it.”

  “And go to hell? Surely not!”

  “Not I, but my murderer.” Her voice was fainter, yet still distinct. “Would you be blessed, Brooks? Blessed as the saints were? Would you join those who sit at the right hand of the Lord? Prevent my murder, and you shall. I swear it! Although I do not decide these things, I know how they are decided.”

  “But, madam,” I began.

  “Have you a knife? You need but—”

  “Oh, Miss Landon! Do not speak of that, I beg you.” I wept then, and turning back to my bed buried my face in the sheet, but wept still.

  “You bear the mark of Cain.” Her whisper was an icy caress. “I did not know it, but am cognizant of it now. I shall tell you how that mark may be expunged anon.”

  I wept on until at length I felt the touch of a female hand; at it, my tears ceased, and I sat bolt upright, for it had not been the chill digits of the ghost I had felt upon my shoulder but the warm fingers of a living woman. One of the housemaids, hearing my sobs, had come in to enquire as to their cause.

  “I am weeping for my sins,” I told her. “At times I wake in the night and am oppressed by them.”

  “Are they many?” You may laugh at the naïveté of the question, but the sympathy it held touched me deeply.

  “I hope not,” I said, “but there is one . . .” I could not complete the thought.

  “You have repented of it.”

  I nodded. “A hundred times over.”

  “In that case, God has forgiven you, Mr. Brooks. You must come to forgive yourself.”

  We talked longer, but I need not give it all. When we parted, I said, “There are spirits of evil abroad, Kate. Tonight I have learned that the angels of Heaven move among them.” I do not believe she grasped my meaning.

  The great day arrived, and brought so many guests that every servant who could be made presentable was needed to wait upon them all; and, indeed, we might have made good use of a round dozen more. Eleven courses made the meal
; and though I had scarcely a moment to take breath between serving and clearing, I had also many occasions to steal a glimpse at the living Miss Alice Landon. Her golden hair and wide blue eyes were her best features, and I verily believe that those alone might have made her fortune on the stage. If her complexion were blotched, as my master had alleged, its disfigurements were well concealed by powder. She was, possibly, some trifle too slim for fashionable beauty; but that was a fault the mere passage of time would likely mend.

  I tried not to stare at her, yet ere long I realized that she was staring at me, and I thought her expression both wondering and puzzled. When I was clearing off the game, I saw her whisper to the young gentleman to her right; it seemed clear that she was enquiring about me, and had received a satisfactory answer, too, for she nodded at it. Her satisfaction, however, did not put an end to her stares.

  Her ghost came again that night, not a moment after I had stretched my weary frame upon my bed. “This is the night,” she told me; her voice held a breathless urgency I had not heard before. “I will not speak of the mark you bear upon your immortal soul, nor seek to learn whom it was you killed—”

  I sat up. “I must tell someone,” I exclaimed, “or else go mad. It was I who slew Mr. Bolter, third mate of the Jack Robinson.”

  “We have not time—”

  “You need me,” I whispered, “thus you shall listen as I speak, and for as long as it takes me to tell my tale. For if you do not listen, you shall surely die this night.”

  She nodded a reluctant acquiescence.

  “I had been in a fight in a low dive in Shanghai. It has never been my custom to frequent such places, but no others were available to common sailors. The better places, though they were very bad, were not so bad as to admit us. I had been knocked down and kicked. Yes, I who had been so often kicked on board had been kicked worse ashore. Kicked and spat upon. I lay doggo then, playing dead until the fight was over and all those who still lived had left. Then I opened my eyes again and found very near my right hand a long dagger, double-edged, with an ivory grip. I picked it up.”