The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

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

  ‘Why hadn’t she been over to tell you?’ Rebecca was angry, though not suspicious. She even saw no reason for her anger.

  ‘Oh, she was putting up grapes. She was coming over just as soon as she got the black off her hands. She heard I had company, and her hands were a sight. She was holding them over sulphur matches.’

  ‘You say she’s going to stay a few days?’ repeated Rebecca dazedly.

  ‘Yes; till Thursday, Mrs Slocum said.’

  ‘How far is Lincoln from here?’

  ‘About fifty miles. It’ll be a real treat to her. Mrs Slocum’s sister is a real nice woman.’

  ‘It is goin’ to make it pretty late about my goin’ home.’

  ‘If you don’t feel as if you could wait, I’ll get her ready and send her on just as soon as I can,’ Mrs Dent said sweetly.

  ‘I’m going to wait,’ said Rebecca grimly.

  The two women sat down again, and Mrs Dent took up her embroidery.

  ‘Is there any sewing I can do for her?’ Rebecca asked finally in a desperate way. ‘If I can get her sewing along some – ’

  Mrs Dent arose with alacrity and fetched a mass of white from the closet. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘if you want to sew the lace on this nightgown. I was going to put her to it, but she’ll be glad enough to get rid of it. She ought to have this and one more before she goes. I don’t like to send her away without some good underclothing.’

  Rebecca snatched at the little white garment and sewed feverishly.

  That night she wakened from a deep sleep a little after midnight and lay a minute trying to collect her faculties and explain to herself what she was listening to. At last she discovered that it was the then popular strains of ‘The Maiden’s Prayer’ floating up through the floor from the piano in the sitting-room below.8 She jumped up, threw a shawl over her nightgown, and hurried downstairs trembling. There was nobody in the sitting-room; the piano was silent. She ran to Mrs Dent’s bedroom and called hysterically:

  ‘Emeline! Emeline!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Mrs Dent’s voice from the bed. The voice was stern, but had a note of consciousness in it.

  ‘Who – who was that playing “The Maiden’s Prayer” in the sitting-room, on the piano?’

  ‘I didn’t hear anybody.’

  ‘There was some one.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘I tell you there was some one. But – there ain’t anybody there.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘I did – somebody playing “The Maiden’s Prayer” on the piano. Has Agnes got home? I want to know.’

  ‘Of course Agnes hasn’t got home,’ answered Mrs Dent with rising inflection. ‘Be you gone crazy over that girl? The last boat from Porter’s Falls was in before we went to bed. Of course she ain’t come.’

  ‘I heard –’

  ‘You were dreaming.’

  ‘I wasn’t; I was broad awake.’

  Rebecca went back to her chamber and kept her lamp burning all night.

  The next morning her eyes upon Mrs Dent were wary and blazing with suppressed excitement. She kept opening her mouth as if to speak, then frowning, and setting her lips hard. After breakfast she went upstairs, and came down presently with her coat and bonnet.

  ‘Now, Emeline,’ she said, ‘I want to know where the Slocums live.’

  Mrs Dent gave a strange, long, half-lidded glance at her. She was finishing her coffee.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going over there and find out if they have heard anything from her daughter and Agnes since they went away. I don’t like what I heard last night.’

  ‘You must have been dreaming.’

  ‘I don’t make any odds whether I was or not. Does she play “The Maiden’s Prayer” on the piano? I want to know.’

  ‘What if she does? She plays it a little, I believe. I don’t know. She don’t half play it, anyhow; she ain’t got an ear.’

  ‘That wasn’t half played last night. I don’t like such things happening. I ain’t superstitious, but I don’t like it. I’m going. Where do the Slocum’s live?’

  ‘You go down the road over the bridge past the old grist mill, then you turn to the left; it’s the only house for half a mile. You can’t miss it. It has a barn with a ship in full sail on the cupola.’9

  ‘Well, I’m going. I don’t feel easy.’

  About two hours later Rebecca returned. There were red spots on her cheeks. She looked wild. ‘I’ve been there,’ she said, ‘and there isn’t a soul at home. Something has happened.’

  ‘What has happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something. I had a warning last night. There wasn’t a soul there. They’ve been sent for to Lincoln.’

  ‘Did you see anybody to ask?’ asked Mrs Dent with thinly concealed anxiety.

  ‘I asked the woman that lives on the turn of the road. She’s stone deaf. I suppose you know. She listened while I screamed at her to know where the Slocums were, and then she said, “Mrs Smith don’t live here.” I didn’t see anybody on the road, and that’s the only house. What do you suppose it means?’

  ‘I don’t suppose it means much of anything,’ replied Mrs Dent coolly. ‘Mr Slocum is conductor on the railroad, and he’d be away anyway, and Mrs Slocum often goes early when he does, to spend the day with her sister in Porter’s Falls. She’d be more likely to go away than Addie.’

  ‘And you don’t think anything has happened?’ Rebecca asked with diminishing distrust before the reasonableness of it.

  ‘Land, no!’

  Rebecca went upstairs to lay aside her coat and bonnet. But she came hurrying back with them still on.

  ‘Who’s been in my room?’ she gasped. Her face was pale as ashes.

  Mrs Dent also paled as she regarded her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked slowly.

  ‘I found when I went upstairs that – little nightgown of – Agnes’s on – the bed, laid out. It was – laid out. The sleeves were folded across the bosom, and there was that little red rose between them. Emeline, what is it? Emeline, what’s the matter? Oh!’

  Mrs Dent was struggling for breath in great, choking gasps. She clung to the back of a chair. Rebecca, trembling herself so she could scarcely keep on her feet, got her some water.

  As soon as she recovered herself Mrs Dent regarded her with eyes full of the strangest mixture of fear and horror and hostility.

  ‘What do you mean talking so?’ she said in a hard voice.

  ‘It is there.’

  ‘Nonsense. You threw it down and it fell that way.’

  ‘It was folded in my bureau drawer.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been.’

  ‘Who picked that red rose?’

  ‘Look on the bush,’ Mrs Dent replied shortly.

  Rebecca looked at her; her mouth gaped. She hurried out of the room. When she came back her eyes seemed to protrude. (She had in the meantime hastened upstairs, and come down with tottering steps, clinging to the banisters.)

  ‘Now I want to know what all this means?’ she demanded.

  ‘What what means?’

  ‘The rose is on the bush, and it’s gone from the bed in my room! Is this house haunted, or what?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about a house being haunted. I don’t believe in such things. Be you crazy?’ Mrs Dent spoke with gathering force. The colour flashed back to her cheeks.

  ‘No,’ said Rebecca shortly. ‘I ain’t crazy yet, but I shall be if this keeps on much longer. I’m going to find out where that girl is before night.’

  Mrs Dent eyed her.

  ‘What be you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to Lincoln.’

  A faint triumphant smile overspread Mrs Dent’s large face.

  ‘You can’t,’ said she; ‘there ain’t any train.’

  ‘No train?’

  ‘No; there ain’t any afternoon train from the Falls to Lincoln.’

  ‘Then I’m going over
to the Slocums’ again to-night.’

  However, Rebecca did not go; such a rain came up as deterred even her resolution, and she had only her best dresses with her. Then in the evening came the letter from the Michigan village which she had left nearly a week ago. It was from her cousin, a single woman, who had come to keep her house while she was away. It was a pleasant unexciting letter enough, all the first of it, and related mostly how she missed Rebecca; how she hoped she was having pleasant weather and kept her health; and how her friend, Mrs Greenaway, had come to stay with her since she had felt lonesome the first night in the house; how she hoped Rebecca would have no objections to this, although nothing had been said about it, since she had not realized that she might be nervous alone. The cousin was painfully conscientious, hence the letter. Rebecca smiled in spite of her disturbed mind as she read it, then her eye caught the postscript. That was in a different hand, purporting to be written by the friend, Mrs Hannah Greenaway, informing her that the cousin had fallen down the cellar stairs and broken her hip, and was in a dangerous condition, and begging Rebecca to return at once, as she herself was rheumatic and unable to nurse her properly, and no one else could be obtained.

  Rebecca looked at Mrs Dent, who had come to her room with the letter quite late; it was half-past nine, and she had gone upstairs for the night.

  ‘Where did this come from?’ she asked.

  ‘Mr Amblecrom brought it,’ she replied.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘The postmaster. He often brings the letters that come on the late mail. He knows I ain’t anybody to send. He brought yours about your coming. He said he and his wife came over on the ferry-boat with you.’

  ‘I remember him,’ Rebecca replied shortly. ‘There’s bad news in this letter.’

  Mrs Dent’s face took on an expression of serious inquiry.

  ‘Yes, my Cousin Harriet has fallen down the cellar stairs – they were always dangerous – and she’s broken her hip, and I’ve got to take the first train home to-morrow.’

  ‘You don’t say so. I’m dreadfully sorry.’

  ‘No, you ain’t sorry!’ said Rebecca, with a look as if she leaped. ‘You’re glad. I don’t know why, but you’re glad. You’ve wanted to get rid of me for some reason ever since I came. I don’t know why. You’re a strange woman. Now you’ve got your way, and I hope you’re satisfied.’

  ‘How you talk.’

  Mrs Dent spoke in a faintly injured voice, but there was a light in her eyes.

  ‘I talk the way it is. Well, I’m going to-morrow morning, and I want you, just as soon as Agnes Dent comes home, to send her out to me. Don’t you wait for anything. You pack what clothes she’s got, and don’t wait even to mend them, and you buy her ticket. I’ll leave the money, and you send her along. She don’t have to change cars. You start her off, when she gets home, on the next train!’

  ‘Very well,’ replied the other woman. She had an expression of covert amusement.

  ‘Mind you do it.’

  ‘Very well, Rebecca.’

  Rebecca started on her journey the next morning. When she arrived, two days later, she found her cousin in perfect health. She found, moreover, that the friend had not written the postscript in the cousin’s letter. Rebecca would have returned to Ford Village the next morning, but the fatigue and nervous strain had been too much for her. She was not able to move from her bed. She had a species of low fever induced by anxiety and fatigue. But she could write, and she did, to the Slocums, and she received no answer. She also wrote to Mrs Dent; she even sent numerous telegrams, with no response. Finally she wrote to the postmaster, and an answer arrived by the first possible mail. The letter was short, curt, and to the purpose. Mr Amblecrom, the postmaster, was a man of few words, and especially wary as to his expressions in a letter.

  ‘Dear madam,’ he wrote, ‘your favour rec’ed. No Slocums in Ford’s Village. All dead. Addie ten years ago, her mother two years later, her father five. House vacant. Mrs John Dent said to have neglected stepdaughter. Girl was sick. Medicine not given. Talk of taking action. Not enough evidence. House said to be haunted. Strange sights and sounds. Your niece, Agnes Dent, died a year ago, about this time.

  ‘Yours truly,

  ‘THOMAS AMBLECROM.’

  M. R. JAMES

  ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’1

  ‘I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full term is over, Professor,’ said a person not in the story to the Professor of Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in the hospitable hall of St James’s College.2

  The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech.

  ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘my friends have been making me take up golf this term, and I mean to go to the East Coast – in point of fact to Burnstow – (I dare say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game.3 I hope to get off to-morrow.’

  ‘Oh, Parkins,’ said his neighbour on the other side, ‘if you are going to Burnstow, I wish you would look at the site of the Templars’ preceptory, and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in the summer.’4

  It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to give his entitlements.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Parkins, the Professor: ‘if you will describe to me whereabouts the site is, I will do my best to give you an idea of the lie of the land when I get back; or I could write to you about it, if you would tell me where you are likely to be.’

  ‘Don’t trouble to do that, thanks. It’s only that I’m thinking of taking my family in that direction in the Long, and it occurred to me that, as very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly planned, I might have an opportunity of doing something useful on off-days.’5

  The Professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory could be described as useful. His neighbour continued:

  ‘The site – I doubt if there is anything showing above ground – must be down quite close to the beach now. The sea has encroached tremendously, as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map, that it must be about three-quarters of a mile from the Globe Inn, at the north end of the town. Where are you going to stay?’

  ‘Well, at the Globe Inn, as a matter of fact,’ said Parkins; ‘I have engaged a room there. I couldn’t get in anywhere else; most of the lodging-houses are shut up in winter, it seems; and, as it is, they tell me that the only room of any size I can have is really a double-bedded one, and that they haven’t a corner in which to store the other bed, and so on.’6 But I must have a fairly large room, for I am taking some books down, and mean to do a bit of work; and though I don’t quite fancy having an empty bed – not to speak of two – in what I may call for the time being my study, I suppose I can manage to rough it for the short time I shall be there.’

  ‘Do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins?’ said a bluff person opposite. ‘Look here, I shall come down and occupy it for a bit; it’ll be company for you.’

  The Professor quivered, but managed to laugh in a courteous manner.

  ‘By all means, Rogers; there’s nothing I should like better. But I’m afraid you would find it rather dull; you don’t play golf, do you?’

  ‘No, thank Heaven!’ said rude Mr Rogers.

  ‘Well, you see, when I’m not writing I shall most likely be out on the links, and that, as I say, would be rather dull for you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know! There’s certain to be somebody I know in the place; but, of course, if you don’t want me, speak the word, Parkins; I shan’t be offended. Truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.’

  Parkins was, indeed, scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. It is to be feared that Mr Rogers sometimes practised upon his knowledge of these characteristics. In Parkins’s breast there was a conflict now raging, which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer.
That interval being over, he said:

  ‘Well, if you want the exact truth, Rogers, I was considering whether the room I speak of would really be large enough to accommodate us both comfortably; and also whether (mind, I shouldn’t have said this if you hadn’t pressed me) you would not constitute something in the nature of a hindrance to my work.’

  Rogers laughed loudly.

  ‘Well done, Parkins!’ he said. ‘It’s all right. I promise not to interrupt your work; don’t you disturb yourself about that. No, I won’t come if you don’t want me; but I thought I should do so nicely to keep the ghosts off.’ Here he might have been seen to wink and to nudge his next neighbour. Parkins might also have been seen to become pink. ‘I beg pardon, Parkins,’ Rogers continued; ‘I oughtn’t to have said that. I forgot you didn’t like levity on these topics.’

  ‘Well,’ Parkins said, ‘as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own that I do not like careless talk about what you call ghosts. A man in my position,’ he went on, raising his voice a little, ‘cannot, I find, be too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such subjects. As you know, Rogers, or as you ought to know; for I think I have never concealed my views – ’

  ‘No, you certainly have not, old man,’ put in Rogers sotto voce.

  ‘– I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view that such things might exist is to me a renunciation of all that I hold most sacred. But I’m afraid I have not succeeded in securing your attention.’

  ‘Your undivided attention, was what Dr Blimber actually said,’* Rogers interrupted, with every appearance of an earnest desire for accuracy. ‘But I beg your pardon, Parkins: I’m stopping you.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Parkins. ‘I don’t remember Blimber; perhaps he was before my time. But I needn’t go on. I’m sure you know what I mean.’