The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

by The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories- From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (retail) (epub)

  I hurried off that evening, as may be supposed with an anxious heart. How I got through the hours before the starting of the train, I cannot tell. We must all be thankful for the quickness of the railway when in anxiety; but to have thrown myself into a post-chaise as soon as horses could be put to, would have been a relief. I got to Edinburgh very early in the blackness of the winter morning, and scarcely dared look the man in the face, at whom I gasped ‘What news?’ My wife had sent the brougham for me, which I concluded, before the man spoke, was a bad sign.10 His answer was that stereotyped answer which leaves the imagination so wildly free – ‘Just the same.’ Just the same! What might that mean? The horses seemed to me to creep along the long dark country-road. As we dashed through the park, I thought I heard some one moaning among the trees, and clenched my fist at him (whoever he might be) with fury. Why had the fool of a woman at the gate allowed any one to come in to disturb the quiet of the place? If I had not been in such hot haste to get home, I think I should have stopped the carriage and got out to see what tramp it was that had made an entrance, and chosen my grounds, of all places in the world, – when my boy was ill! – to grumble and groan in. But I had no reason to complain of our slow pace here. The horses flew like lightning along the intervening path, and drew up at the door all panting, as if they had run a race. My wife stood waiting to receive me with a pale face, and a candle in her hand, which made her look paler still as the wind blew the flame about. ‘He is sleeping,’ she said in a whisper, as if her voice might wake him. And I replied, when I could find my voice, also in a whisper, as though the jingling of the horses’ furniture and the sound of their hoofs must not have been more dangerous. I stood on the steps with her a moment, almost afraid to go in, now that I was here; and it seemed to me that I saw without observing, if I may say so, that the horses were unwilling to turn round, though their stables lay that way, or that the men were unwilling. These things occurred to me afterwards, though at the moment I was not capable of anything but to ask questions and to hear of the condition of the boy.

  I looked at him from the door of his room, for we were afraid to go near, lest we should disturb that blessed sleep. It looked like actual sleep – not the lethargy into which my wife told me he would sometimes fall. She told me everything in the next room, which communicated with his, rising now and then and going to the door of communication; and in this there was much that was very startling and confusing to the mind. It appeared that ever since the winter began, since it was early dark, and night had fallen before his return from school, he had been hearing voices among the ruins – at first only a groaning, he said, at which his pony was as much alarmed as he was, but by degrees a voice. The tears ran down my wife’s cheeks as she described to me how he would start up in the night and cry out, ‘Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, let me in!’ with a pathos which rent her heart. And she sitting there all the time, only longing to do everything his heart could desire! But though she would try to soothe him, crying, ‘You are at home, my darling. I am here. Don’t you know me? Your mother is here!’ he would only stare at her, and after a while spring up again with the same cry. At other times he would be quite reasonable, she said, asking eagerly when I was coming, but declaring that he must go with me as soon as I did so, ‘to let them in.’ ‘The doctor thinks his nervous system must have received a shock,’ my wife said. ‘Oh, Henry, can it be that we have pushed him on too much with his work – a delicate boy like Roland? – and what is his work in comparison with his health? Even you would think little of honours or prizes if it hurt the boy’s health.’ Even I! as if I were an inhuman father sacrificing my child to my ambition. But I would not increase her trouble by taking any notice. After a while they persuaded me to lie down, to rest, and to eat – none of which things had been possible since I received their letters. The mere fact of being on the spot, of course, in itself was a great thing; and when I knew that I could be called in a moment, as soon as he was awake and wanted me, I felt capable, even in the dark, chill morning twilight, to snatch an hour or two’s sleep. As it happened, I was so worn out with the strain of anxiety, and he so quieted and consoled by knowing I had come, that I was not disturbed till the afternoon, when the twilight had again settled down. There was just daylight enough to see his face when I went to him; and what a change in a fortnight! He was paler and more worn, I thought, than even in those dreadful days in the plains before we left India. His hair seemed to me to have grown long and lank; his eyes were like blazing lights projecting out of his white face. He got hold of my hand in a cold and tremulous clutch, and waved to everybody to go away. ‘Go away – even mother,’ he said, – ‘go away.’ This went to her heart, for she did not like that even I should have more of the boy’s confidence than herself; but my wife has never been a woman to think of herself, and she left us alone. ‘Are they all gone?’ he said, eagerly. ‘They would not let me speak. The doctor treated me as if I were a fool. You know I am not a fool, papa.’

  ‘Yes, yes, my boy, I know; but you are ill, and quiet is so necessary. You are not only not a fool, Roland, but you are reasonable and understand. When you are ill you must deny yourself; you must not do everything that you might do being well.’

  He waved his thin hand with a sort of indignation. ‘Then, father, I am not ill,’ he cried. ‘Oh, I thought when you came you would not stop me, – you would see the sense of it! What do you think is the matter with me, all of you? Simson is well enough, but he is only a doctor. What do you think is the matter with me? I am no more ill than you are. A doctor, of course, he thinks you are ill the moment he looks at you – that’s what he’s there for – and claps you into bed.’

  ‘Which is the best place for you at present, my dear boy.’

  ‘I made up my mind,’ cried the little fellow, ‘that I would stand it till you came home. I said to myself, I won’t frighten mother and the girls. But now, father,’ he cried, half jumping out of bed, ‘it’s not illness, – it’s a secret.’

  His eyes shone so wildly, his face was so swept with strong feeling, that my heart sank within me. It could be nothing but fever that did it, and fever had been so fatal. I got him into my arms to put him back into bed. ‘Roland,’ I said, humouring the poor child, which I knew was the only way, ‘if you are going to tell me this secret to do any good, you know you must be quite quiet, and not excite yourself. If you excite yourself, I must not let you speak.’

  ‘Yes, father,’ said the boy. He was quiet directly, like a man, as if he quite understood. When I had laid him back on his pillow, he looked up at me with that grateful sweet look with which children, when they are ill, break one’s heart, the water coming into his eyes in his weakness. ‘I was sure as soon as you were here you would know what to do,’ he said.

  ‘To be sure, my boy. Now keep quiet, and tell it all out like a man.’ To think I was telling lies to my own child! for I did it only to humour him, thinking, poor little fellow, his brain was wrong.

  ‘Yes, father. Father, there is some one in the park, – some one that has been badly used.’

  ‘Hush, my dear; you remember, there is to be no excitement. Well, who is this somebody, and who has been ill-using him? We will soon put a stop to that.’

  ‘Ah,’ cried Roland, ‘but it is not so easy as you think. I don’t know who it is. It is just a cry. Oh, if you could hear it! It gets into my head in my sleep. I heard it as clear – as clear; – and they think that I am dreaming – or raving perhaps,’ the boy said, with a sort of disdainful smile.

  This look of his perplexed me; it was less like fever than I thought. ‘Are you quite sure you have not dreamt it, Roland?’ I said.

  ‘Dreamt? – that!’ He was springing up again when he suddenly bethought himself, and lay down flat with the same sort of smile on his face. ‘The pony heard it too,’ he said. ‘She jumped as if she had been shot. If I had not grasped at the reins, – for I was frightened, father – ’

  ‘No shame to you, my boy,’ said I, though I sca
rcely knew why.

  ‘If I hadn’t held to her like a leech, she’d have pitched me over her head, and never drew breath till we were at the door. Did the pony dream it?’ he said, with a soft disdain, yet indulgence for my foolishness. Then he added slowly: ‘It was only a cry the first time, and all the time before you went away. I wouldn’t tell you, for it was so wretched to be frightened. I thought it might be a hare or a rabbit snared, and I went in the morning and looked, but there was nothing. It was after you went I heard it really first, and this is what he says.’ He raised himself on his elbow close to me, and looked me in the face. ‘ “Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, let me in!” ’ As he said the words a mist came over his face, the mouth quivered, the soft features all melted and changed, and when he had ended these pitiful words, dissolved in a shower of heavy tears.

  Was it a hallucination? Was it the fever of the brain? Was it the disordered fancy caused by great bodily weakness? How could I tell? I thought it wisest to accept it as if it were all true.

  ‘This is very touching, Roland,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, if you had just heard it, father! I said to myself, if father heard it he would do something; but mamma, you know, she’s given over to Simson, and that fellow’s a doctor, and never thinks of anything but clapping you into bed.’

  ‘We must not blame Simson for being a doctor, Roland.’

  ‘No, no,’ said my boy, with delightful toleration and indulgence; ‘oh no; that’s the good of him – that’s what he’s for; I know that. But you – you are different; you are just father: and you’ll do something, – directly, papa, directly, this very night.’

  ‘Surely,’ I said. ‘No doubt it is some little lost child.’

  He gave me a sudden, swift look, investigating my face as though to see whether, after all, this was everything my eminence as ‘father’ came to, – no more than that? Then he got hold of my shoulder, clutching it with his thin hand: ‘Look here,’ he said, with a quiver in his voice; ‘suppose it wasn’t – living at all!’

  ‘My dear boy, how then could you have heard it?’ I said.

  He turned away from me with a pettish exclamation – ‘As if you didn’t know better than that!’

  ‘Do you want to tell me it is a ghost?’ I said.

  Roland withdrew his hand; his countenance assumed an aspect of great dignity and gravity; a slight quiver remained about his lips. ‘Whatever it was – you always said we were not to call names. It was something – in trouble. Oh, father, in terrible trouble!’

  ‘But, my boy,’ I said – I was at my wits’ end – ‘if it was a child that was lost, or any poor human creature – but, Roland, what do you want me to do?’

  ‘I should know if I was you,’ said the child, eagerly. ‘That is what I always said to myself – Father will know. ‘Oh, papa, papa, to have to face it night after night, in such terrible, terrible trouble! and never to be able to do it any good. I don’t want to cry; it’s like a baby, I know; but what can I do else? – out there all by itself in the ruin, and nobody to help it. I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it!’ cried my generous boy. And in his weakness he burst out, after many attempts to restrain it, into a great childish fit of sobbing and tears.

  I do not know that I ever was in a greater perplexity in my life; and afterwards, when I thought of it, there was something comic in it too. It is bad enough to find your child’s mind possessed with the conviction that he has seen – or heard – a ghost. But that he should require you to go instantly and help that ghost, was the most bewildering experience that had ever come my way. I am a sober man myself, and not superstitious – at least any more than everybody is superstitious. Of course I do not believe in ghosts; but I don’t deny, any more than other people, that there are stories, which I cannot pretend to understand. My blood got a sort of chill in my veins at the idea that Roland should be a ghost-seer; for that generally means a hysterical temperament and weak health, and all that men most hate and fear for their children. But that I should take up his ghost and right its wrongs, and save it from its trouble, was such a mission as was enough to confuse any man. I did my best to console my boy without giving any promise of this astonishing kind; but he was too sharp for me. He would have none of my caresses. With sobs breaking in at intervals upon his voice, and the rain-drops hanging on his eyelids, he yet returned to the charge.

  ‘It will be there now – it will be there all the night. Oh think, papa, think, if it was me! I can’t rest for thinking of it. Don’t!’ he cried, putting away my hand – ‘don’t! You go and help it, and mother can take care of me.’

  ‘But, Roland, what can I do?’

  My boy opened his eyes, which were large with weakness and fever, and gave me a smile such, I think, as sick children only know the secret of. ‘I was sure you would know as soon as you came. I always said – Father will know: and mother,’ he cried, with a softening of repose upon his face, his limbs relaxing, his form sinking with a luxurious ease in his bed – ‘mother can come and take care of me.’

  I called her, and saw him turn to her with the complete dependence of a child, and then I went away and left them, as perplexed a man as any in Scotland. I must say, however, I had this consolation, that my mind was greatly eased about Roland. He might be under a hallucination, but his head was clear enough, and I did not think him so ill as everybody else did. The girls were astonished even at the ease with which I took it. ‘How do you think he is?’ they said in a breath, coming round me, laying hold of me. ‘Not half so ill as I expected,’ I said; ‘not very bad at all.’ ‘Oh, papa, you are a darling!’ cried Agatha, kissing me, and crying upon my shoulder; while little Jeanie, who was as pale as Roland, clasped both her arms round mine, and could not speak at all. I knew nothing about it, not half so much as Simson: but they believed in me; they had a feeling that all would go right now. God is very good to you when your children look to you like that. It makes one humble, not proud. I was not worthy of it; and then I recollected that I had to act the part of a father to Roland’s ghost, which made me almost laugh, though I might just as well have cried. It was the strangest mission that ever was intrusted to mortal man.

  It was then I remembered suddenly the looks of the men when they turned to take the brougham to the stables in the dark that morning: they had not liked it, and the horses had not liked it. I remembered that even in my anxiety about Roland I had heard them tearing along the avenue back to the stables, and had made a memorandum mentally that I must speak of it. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do was to go to the stables now and make a few inquiries. It is impossible to fathom the minds of rustics; there might be some devilry of practical joking, for anything I knew; or they might have some interest in getting up a bad reputation for the Brentwood avenue. It was getting dark by the time I went out, and nobody who knows the country will need to be told how black is the darkness of a November night under high laurel-bushes and yew-trees. I walked into the heart of the shrubberies two or three times, not seeing a step before me, till I came out upon the broader carriage-road, where the trees opened a little, and there was a faint grey glimmer of sky visible, under which the great limes and elms stood darkling like ghosts; but it grew black again as I approached the corner where the ruins lay. Both eyes and ears were on the alert, as may be supposed; but I could see nothing in the absolute gloom, and, so far as I can recollect, I heard nothing. Nevertheless there came a strong impression upon me that somebody was there. It is a sensation which most people have felt. I have seen when it has been strong enough to awake me out of sleep, the sense of some one looking at me. I suppose my imagination had been affected by Roland’s story; and the mystery of the darkness is always full of suggestions. I stamped my feet violently on the gravel to rouse myself, and called out sharply, ‘Who’s there?’ Nobody answered, nor did I expect any one to answer, but the impression had been made. I was so foolish that I did not like to look back, but went sideways, keeping an eye on the gloom behind. It was with great relief tha
t I spied the light in the stables, making a sort of oasis in the darkness. I walked very quickly into the midst of that lighted and cheerful place, and thought the clank of the groom’s pail one of the pleasantest sounds I had ever heard. The coachman was the head of this little colony, and it was to his house I went to pursue my investigations. He was a native of the district, and had taken care of the place in the absence of the family for years; it was impossible but that he must know everything that was going on, and all the traditions of the place. The men, I could see, eyed me anxiously when I thus appeared at such an hour among them, and followed me with their eyes to Jarvis’s house, where he lived alone with his old wife, their children being all married and out in the world. Mrs Jarvis met me with anxious questions. How was the poor young gentleman? but the others knew, I could see by their faces, that not even this was the foremost thing in my mind.