The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told

by Stephen Brennan

  ‘She walked with us a few yards, slowly and thoughtfully. I could see her now, with her pale, tired face, under the cherry-coloured ribbons of her hood. She had been very handsome as a young woman, and was most sweet-looking still–my dear, good mother!

  ‘“Dorothy, we will discuss this no more. I am very sorry, but I must go home. However, I will persuade your father to remain with you till the week’s end. Are you satisfied!’

  ‘“No,” was the first filial impulse of my heart; but Edmund pressed my arm with such an entreating look, that almost against my will I answered “Yes.”

  ‘Mr Everest overwhelmed my mother with his delight and gratitude. She walked up and down for some time longer, leaning on his arm–she was very fond of him; then stood looking on the river, upwards and downwards.

  ‘“I suppose this is my last walk in London. Thank you for all the care you have taken of me. And when I am gone home–mind, oh, mind, Edmond, that you take special care of Dorothy.”

  ‘ These words, and the tone in which they were spoken, fixed themselves on my mind– first, from gratitude, not unmingled with regret, as if I had not been so considerate to her as she to me; afterwards—But we often err, my dear, in dwelling too much on that word. We finite creatures have only to deal with “now”–nothing whatever to do with “afterwards.” In this case, I have ceased to blame myself or others. Whatever was, being past, was right to be, and could not have been otherwise.

  ‘My mother went home next morning, alone. We were to follow in a few days, though she would not allow us to fix any time. Her departure was so hurried that I remember nothing about it, save her answer to my father’s urgent desire–almost command–that if anything went amiss she would immediately let him know.

  ‘“Under all circumstances, wife,” he reiterated, “this you promise?”

  ‘“I promise.”

  ? Though when she was gone he declared she need not have said it so earnestly, since we should be at home almost as soon as the slow Bath coach could take her there and bring us back a letter. And besides, there was nothing likely to happen. But he fidgeted a good deal, being unused to her absence in their happy wedded life. He was, like most men, glad to blame anybody but himself, and the whole day, and the next, was cross at intervals with both Edmond and me; but we bore it–and patiently.

  ‘”It will be all right when we get him to the theatre. He has no real cause for anxiety about her. What a dear woman she is, and a precious - your mother, Dorothy!”

  ‘I rejoiced to hear my lover speak thus, and thought there hardly ever was young gentlewoman so blessed as I.

  ‘ We went to the play. Ah, you know nothing of what a play is, nowadays. You never saw John Kemble and Mrs Siddons. Though in dresses and shows it was far inferior to the Hamlet you took me to see last week, my dear–and though I perfectly well remember being on the point of laughing when in the most solemn scene, it became clearly evident that the Ghost had been drinking. Strangely enough, no after events connected therewith ever were able to drive from my mind the vivid impression of this my first play. Strange, also, that the play should have been Hamlet. Do you think that Shakespeare believed in—in what people call “ghosts?”’

  I could not say; but I thought Mrs MacArthur’s ghost very long in coming.

  ‘Don’t, my dear–don’t; do anything but laugh at it.’

  She was visibly affected, and it was not without an effort that she proceeded in her story.

  ‘I wish you to understand exactly my position that night–a young girl, her head full of the enchantment of the stage–her heart of something not less engrossing. Mr Everest had supped with us, leaving us both in the best of spirits; indeed my father had gone to bed, laughing heartily at the remembrance of the antics of Mr Grimaldi, which had almost obliterated the Queen and Hamlet from his memory, on which the ridiculous always took a far stronger hold than the awful or sublime.

  ‘I was sitting–let me see–at the window, chatting with my maid Patty, who was brushing the powder out of my hair. The window was open half-way, and looking out on the Thames; and the summer night being very warm and starry, made it almost like sitting out of doors. There was none of the awe given by the solitude of a closed room, when every sound is magnified, and every shadow seems alive.

  ‘As I said, we had been chatting and laughing; for Patty and I were both very young, and she had a sweetheart, too. She, like every one of our household, was a warm admirer of Mr Everest. I had just been half scolding, half smiling at her praises of him, when St Paul’s great clock came booming over the silent river.

  ‘“Eleven,” counted Patty. “ Terrible late we be, Mistress Dorothy: not like

  Bath hours, I reckon.”

  ‘“Mother will have been in bed an hour ago,” said I, with a little selfreproach at not having thought of her till now.

  The next minute my maid and I both started up with a simultaneous exclamation.

  ‘“Did you hear that?”

  ‘“Yes, a bat flying against the window.”

  ‘“But the lattices are open, Mistress Dorothy.”

  ‘So they were; and there was no bird or bat or living thing about–only the quiet summer night, the river, and the stars.

  ‘“I be certain sure I heard it. And I think it was like–just a bit like-somebody tapping.”

  ‘“Nonsense, Patty!” But it had struck me thus–though I said it was a bat. It was exactly like the sound of fingers against a pane–very soft, gentle fingers; such as, in passing into her flower-garden, my mother used often to tap outside the school-room casement at home.

  ‘“I wonder, did father hear anything. It–the bird, you know, Patty-might have flown at his window, too?”

  ‘”Oh, Mistress Dorothy!” Patty would not be deceived. I gave her the brush to finish my hair, but her hand shook too much. I shut the window, and we both sat down facing it.

  ‘At that minute, distinct, clear, and unmistakeable, like a person giving a summons in passing by, we heard once more the tapping on the pane. But nothing was seed; not a single shadow came between us and the open air; the bright starlight.

  ‘Startled I was, and awed, but I was not frightened. The sound gave me even an inexplicable delight. But I had hardly time to recognise my feelings, still less to analyse them, when a loud cry came from my father’s room.

  ‘“Dolly,-Dolly!”

  ‘Now my mother and I had both one name, but he always gave her the old-

  fashioned pet name, - I was invariably Dorothy. Still I did not pause to think, but ran to his locked door and answered.

  ?It was a long time before he took any notice, though I heard him talking to himself, and moaning. He was subject to bad dreams, especially before his attacks of gout. So my first alarm lightened. I stood listening, knocking at intervals, until at last he replied.

  ‘“ What do ‘ee want, child?”

  ‘“Is anything the matter, father?”

  ‘“Nothing. Go to thy bed, Dorothy.”

  ‘“Did you not call? Do you want any one?”

  ‘“Not thee. O Dolly, my poor Dolly,”–and he seemed to be almost sobbing, “why did I let thee leave me?

  ‘“Father, you are not going to be ill? It is not the gout, is it? (for that was the time when he wanted my mother most, and, indeed, when he was wholly unmanageable by any one but her.)

  ‘“Go away. Get to thy bed, girl; I don’t want ‘ee.”

  ‘I thought he was angry with me for having been in some sort the cause of our delay, and retired very miserable. Patty and I sat up a good while longer, discussing the dreary prospect of my father’s having a fit of the gout here in London lodgings, with only us to nurse him, and my mother away. Our alarm was so great that we quite forgot the curious circumstance which had first attracted us, till Patty spoke up from her bed on the floor.

  ‘“I hope master aren’t going to be very ill, and that noise – you know - came for a warning. Do ‘ee think it was a bird, Mistress Dorothy?” ‘“
Very likely. Now, Patty, let us go to sleep.”

  ‘But I did not, for all night I heard my father groaning at intervals. I was certain it was the gout, and wished from the bottom of my heart that we had gone home with mother.

  ‘What was my surprise when, quite early, I heard him rise and go down, just as if nothing was ailing him! I found him sitting at the breakfast-table in his travelling coat, looking very haggard and miserable, but evidently bent on a journey.

  ‘“Father, you are not going to Bath?”

  ‘“Yes, I be.”

  ‘“Not till the evening coach starts,” I cried, alarmed. “ We can’t, you know?”

  “Ill take a post-chaise, then. We must be off in an hour.”

  ‘An hour! The cruel pain of parting–(my dear, I believe I used to feel things keenly when I was young)–shot through me–through and through. A single hour, and I should have said good-bye to Edmond -one of those heart-breaking farewells when we seem to leave half of our poor young life behind us, forgetting that the only real parting is when there is no love left to part from. A few years, and I wondered how I could have crept away and wept in such intolerable agony at the mere bidding good-bye to Edmond–Edmond, who loved me!

  ‘Every minute seemed a day till he came in, as usual, to breakfast. My red eyes and my father’s corded trunk explained all.

  ‘“Dr Thwaite, you are not going?”

  ‘“Yes, I am,” repeated my father. He sat moodily leaning on the table - would not taste his breakfast.

  ‘“Not till the night coach, surely? I was to take you and Mistress Dorothy to see Mr Benjamin West, the king’s painter.”

  ‘“Let king and painters alone, lad; I am going home to my Dolly.”

  ‘Mr Everest used many arguments, gay and grave, upon which I hung with earnest conviction and hope. He made things so clear always; he was a man of much brighter parts than my father, and had great influence over him.

  ‘“Dorothy,” he whispered, “help me to persuade the Doctor. It is so little time I beg for, only a few hours; and before so long a parting.”–Ay, longer than he thought, or I.

  ‘“Children,” cried my father at last, “you are a couple of fools. Wait till you have been married twenty years. I must go to my Dolly. I know there is something amiss at home.”

  ‘I should have felt alarmed, but I saw Mr Everest smile; and besides, I was yet glowing under his fond look, as my father spoke of our being “married twenty years.”

  ‘“Father, you have surely no reason for thinking this? If you have, tell us.”

  ‘My father just lifted his head, and looked at me woefully in the face.

  ‘“Dorothy, last night, as sure as I see you now, I saw your mother.” ‘”Is that all?” cried Mr Everest, laughing: “why, my good sir, very likely you did; you were dreaming about her.” “I had not gone to sleep.” ‘“How did you see her?”

  ‘“Coming into my room, just as she used to do in our bedroom at home, with the candle in her hand and the baby asleep on her arm.”

  ‘“Did she speak?” asked Mr Everest, with another and rather satirical smile; “remember, you saw Hamlet last night. Indeed, sir–indeed, Dorothy–it

  was a mere dream. I do not believe in ghosts; it would be an insult to common

  sense, to human wisdom–nay, even to Divinity itself.”

  ?Edmond spoke so earnestly, justly, and withal so affectionately, that perforce I agreed; and even my father began to feel rather ashamed of his own weakness. He, a sensible man and the head of a family, to yield to a mere superstitious fancy, springing probably from a hot supper and an over-excited brain! To the same cause Mr Everest attributed the other incident, which somewhat hesitatingly I told him.

  ‘“Dear, it was a bird; nothing but a bird. One flew in at my window last spring; it had hurt itself, and I kept it, and nursed it, and petted it. It was such a pretty gentle little thing, it put me in mind of Dorothy.”

  ‘“Did it?” said I.

  ‘“And at last it got well and flew away.” ‘“Ah! that was not like Dorothy.”

  ‘ Thus, my father being persuaded, it was not hard to persuade me. We settled to remain till evening. Edmond and I, with my maid Patty went about together chiefly in Mr West’s Gallery, and in the quiet shade of our favourite Temple Gardens. And if for those four stolen hours, and the sweetness in them, I afterwards suffered untold remorse and bitterness, I have entirely forgiven myself, as I know my dear mother would have forgiven me, long ago.’

  Mrs MacArthur stopped, wiped her eyes, and then continued -speaking more in the matter-of-fact way that old people speak in, than she had been lately doing.

  ‘ Well, my dear, where was I?’

  ‘In the Temple Gardens.’

  ?Yes, yes. Then we came home to dinner. My father always enjoyed his dinner, and his nap afterwards; he had nearly recovered himself now: only looked tired from loss of rest. Edmond and I sat in the window, watching the barges and wherries down the Thames; there were no steam-boats then, you know.

  ‘Some one knocked at the door with a message for my father, but he slept so heavily he did not hear. Mr Everest went to see what it was; I stood at the window. I remember mechanically watching the red sail of a Margate hoy that was going down the river, and thinking with a sharp pang how dark the room seemed to grow, in a moment, with Edmond not there.

  ‘Re-entering, after a somewhat long absence, he never looked at me, but went straight to my father.

  ‘“Sir, it is almost time for you to start; (oh! Edmond). “ There is a coach at the door; and, pardon me, but I think you should travel quickly.”

  ‘My father sprang to his feet.

  ‘“Dear sir, wait one moment; I have received news from Bath. You have

  another little daughter, sir, and—”

  ‘“Dolly, my Dolly!” Without another word my father rushed away, leaped into the post-chaise that was waiting and drove off.

  ‘“Edmond!” I gasped.

  ‘“My poor little girl–my own Dorothy!”

  ‘By the tenderness of his embrace, less lover-like than brother-like–by his tears, for I could feel them on my neck-I knew, as well as if he had told me, that I should never see my dear mother any more.

  ?She had died in childbirth,? continued the old lady after a long pause -?died at night, at the same hour and minute that I had heard the tapping on the window-pane, and my father had thought he saw her coming into his room with a baby on her arm.

  ‘ Was the baby dead, too?’

  ‘ They thought so then, but it afterwards revived.’

  ‘ What a strange story!’

  ‘I do not ask you to believe in it. How and why and what it was I cannot tell; I only know that it assuredly was as I have told it.’

  ‘And Mr Everest?’ I inquired, after some hesitation.

  The old lady shook her head. ‘Ah, my dear, you may perhaps learn-though I hope you will not–how very, very seldom things turn out as one expects when one is young. After that day I did not see Mr Everest for twenty years.’

  ‘How wrong of him–how—’

  ‘Don’t blame him; it was not his fault. You see, after that time my father took a prejudice against him–not unnatural, perhaps; and she was not there to make things straight. Besides, my own conscience was very sore, and there were the six children at home, and the little baby had no mother: so at last I made up my mind. I should have loved him just the same if we had waited twenty years. I told him so: but he could not see things in that light. Don’t blame him, my dear, don’t blame him. It was as well, perhaps, as it happened.’

  ‘Did he marry?’

  ‘Yes, after a few years; and loved his wife dearly. When I was about one-and-thirty, I married Mr MacArthur. So neither of us was unhappy, you see–at least, not more so than most people; and we became sincere friends afterwards. Mr and Mrs Everest come to see me still, almost every Sunday. Why, you foolish child, you are not crying?’

  Ay, I was–but scarcely at the g
host story.

  THE FURNISHED ROOM

  O. HENRY

  Restless, shifting, fugacious as time itself is a certain vast bulk of the population of the red brick district of the lower West Side. Homeless, they have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished room to furnished room, transients forever—transients in abode, transients in heart and mind. They sing “Home, Sweet Home” in ragtime; they carry their lares et penates in a bandbox; their vine is entwined about a picture hat; a rubber plant is their fig tree.

  Hence the houses of this district, having had a thousand dwellers, should have a thousand tales to tell, mostly dull ones, no doubt; but it would be strange if there could not be found a ghost or two in the wake of all these vagrant guests.

  One evening after dark a young man prowled among these crumbling red mansions, ringing their bells. At the twelfth he rested his lean hand baggage upon the step and wiped the dust from his hatband and forehead. The bell sounded faint and far away in some remote, hollow depths. To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers.

  He asked if there was a room to let.

  “Come in,” said the housekeeper. Her voice came from her throat; her throat seemed lined with fur. “I have the third-floor-back, vacant since a week back. Should you wish to look at it?”

  The young man followed her up the stairs. A faint light from no particular source mitigated the shadows of the halls. They trod noiselessly upon a stair carpet that its own loom would have forsworn. It seemed to have become vegetable; to have degenerated in that rank, sunless air to lush lichen or spreading moss that grew in patches to the staircase and was viscid under the foot like organic matter. At each turn of the stairs were vacant niches in the wall. Perhaps plants had once been set within them. If so they had died in that foul and tainted air. It may be that statues of the saints had stood there, but it was not difficult to conceive that imps and devils had dragged them forth in the darkness and down to the unholy depths of some furnished pit below.