She heard the porter making up her bed; people were beginning to move about the car; the dressing-room door was being opened and shut. She tried to rouse herself. At length with a supreme effort she rose to her feet, stepping into the aisle of the car and drawing the curtains tight behind her. She noticed that they still parted slightly with the motion of the car, and finding a pin in her dress she fastened them together. Now she was safe. She looked round and saw the porter. She fancied he was watching her.
‘Ain’t he awake yet?’ he enquired.
‘No,’ she faltered.
‘I got his milk all ready when he wants it. You know you told me to have it for him by seven.’
She nodded silently and crept into her seat.
At half-past eight the train reached Buffalo. By this time the other passengers were dressed and the berths had been folded back for the day. The porter, moving to and fro under his burden of sheets and pillows, glanced at her as he passed. At length he said: ‘Ain’t he going to get up? You know we’re ordered to make up the berths as early as we can.’
She turned cold with fear. They were just entering the station.
‘Oh, not yet,’ she stammered. ‘Not till he’s had his milk. Won’t you get it, please?’
‘All right. Soon as we start again.’
When the train moved on he reappeared with the milk. She took it from him and sat vaguely looking at it: her brain moved slowly from one idea to another, as though there were stepping-stones set far apart across a whirling flood. At length she became aware that the porter still hovered expectantly.
‘Will I give it to him?’ he suggested.
‘Oh, no,’ she cried, rising. ‘He – he’s asleep yet, I think –’
She waited till the porter had passed on; then she unpinned the curtains and slipped behind them. In the semi-obscurity her husband’s face stared up at her like a marble mask with agate eyes. The eyes were dreadful. She put out her hand and drew down the lids. Then she remembered the glass of milk in her other hand: what was she to do with it? She thought of raising the window and throwing it out; but to do so she would have to lean across his body and bring her face close to his. She decided to drink the milk.
She returned to her seat with the empty glass and after a while the porter came back to get it.
‘When’ll I fold up his bed? he asked.
Oh, not now – not yet; he’s ill – he’s very ill. Can’t you let him stay as he is? The doctor wants him to lie down as much as possible.’
He scratched his head. ‘Well, if he’s really sick –’
He took the empty glass and walked away, explaining to the passengers that the party behind the curtains was too sick to get up just yet.
She found herself the centre of sympathetic eyes. A motherly woman with an intimate smile sat down beside her.
‘I’m real sorry to hear your husband’s sick. I’ve had a remarkable amount of sickness in my family and maybe I could assist you. Can I take a look at him?’
‘Oh, no – no, please! He mustn’t be disturbed.’
The lady accepted the rebuff indulgently.
‘Well, it’s just as you say, of course, but you don’t look to me as if you’d had much experience in sickness and I’d have been glad to assist you. What do you generally do when you husband’s taken this way?’
‘I – I let him sleep.’
‘Too much sleep ain’t any too healthful either. Don’t you give him any medicine?’
‘Ye – yes.’
‘Don’t you wake him to take it?’
‘Yes.’
‘When does he take the next dose?’
‘Not for – two hours–’
The lady looked disappointed. ‘Well, if I was you I’d try giving it oftener. That’s what I do with my folks.’
After that many faces seemed to press upon her. The passengers were on their way to the dining-car, and she was conscious that as they passed down the aisle they glanced curiously at the closed curtains. One lantern-jawed man with prominent eyes stood still and tried to shoot his projecting glance through the division between the folds. The freckled child, returning from breakfast, waylaid the passers with a buttery clutch, saying in a loud whisper, ‘He’s sick’; and once the conductor came by, asking for tickets. She shrank into her corner and looked out of the window at the flying trees and houses, meaningless hieroglyphs of an endlessly unrolled papyrus.
Now and then the train stopped, and the newcomers on entering the car stared in turn at the closed curtains. More and more people seemed to pass – their faces began to blend fantastically with the images surging in her brain ...
Later in the day a fat man detached himself from the mist of faces. He had a creased stomach and soft pale lips. As he pressed himself into the seat facing her she noticed that he was dressed in black broadcloth, with a soiled white tie.
‘Husband’s pretty bad this morning, is he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dear, dear! Now that’s terribly distressing, ain’t it?’ an apostolic smile revealed his gold-filled teeth.
‘Of course you know there’s no such thing as sickness. Ain’t that a lovely thought? Death itself is but a delusion of our grosser senses. On’y lay yourself open to the influx of the sperrit, submit yourself passively to the action of the divine force, and disease and dissolution will cease to exist for you. If you could indooce your husband to read this little pamphlet –’
The faces about her again grew indistinct. She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn’t tell which remedy had effected the cure; their voices went on and on, like bell-buoys droning through a fog ... The porter came up now and then with questions that she did not understand, but that somehow she must have answered since he went away again without repeating them; every two hours the motherly lady reminded her that her husband ought to have his drops; people left the car and others replaced them ...
Her head was spinning and she tried to steady herself by clutching at her thoughts as they swept by, but they slipped away from her like bushes on the side of a sheer precipice down which she seemed to be falling. Suddenly her mind grew clear again and she found herself vividly picturing what would happen when the train reached New York. She shuddered as it occurred to her that he would be quite cold and that some one might perceive he had been dead since morning.
She thought hurriedly: –‘If they see I am not surprised they will suspect something. They will ask questions, and if I tell them the truth they won’t believe me – no one would believe me! It will be terrible’ – and she kept repeating to herself: –T must pretend I don’t know. I must pretend I don’t know. When they open the curtains I must go up to him quite naturally – and then I must scream.’ ... She had an idea that the scream would be very hard to do.
Gradually new thoughts crowded upon her, vivid and urgent; she tried to separate and retrain them, but they beset her clamorously, like her schoolchildren at the end of a hot day, when she was too tired to silence them. Her head grew confused, and she felt a sick fear of forgetting her part, of betraying herself by some unguarded word or look.
‘I must pretend I don’t know,’ she went on murmuring. The words had lost their significance, but she repeated them mechanically, as though they had been a magic formula, until suddenly she heard herself saying: ‘I can’t remember, I can’t remember!’
Her voice sounded very loud, and she looked about her in terror; but no one seemed to notice that she had spoken.
As she glanced down the car her eye caught the curtains of her husband’s berth, and she began to examine the monotonous arabesques woven through their heavy folds. The pattern was intricate and difficult to trace; she gazed fixedly at the curtains and as she did so the thick stuff grew transparent and through it she saw her husban
d’s face – his dead face. She struggled to avert her look, but her eyes refused to move and her head seemed to be held in a vice. At last, with an effort that left her weak and shaking, she turned away; but it was of no use; close in front of her, small and smooth, was her husband’s face. It seemed to be suspended in the air between her and the false braids of the woman who sat in front of her. With an uncontrollable gesture she stretched out her hand to push the face away, and suddenly she felt the touch of his smooth skin. She repressed a cry and half started from her seat. The woman with the false braids looked around, and feeling that she must justify her movement in some way she rose and lifted her travelling-bag from the opposite seat. She unlocked the bag and looked into it; but the first object her hand met was a small flask of her husband’s, thrust there at the last moment, in the haste of departure. She locked the bag and closed her eyes ... his face was there again, hanging between her eyeballs and lids like a waxen mask against a red curtain ...
She roused herself with a shiver. Had she fainted or slept? Hours seemed to have elapsed; but it was still broad day, and the people about her were sitting in the attitudes as before.
A sudden sense of hunger made her aware that she had eaten nothing since morning. The thought of food filled her with disgust, but she dreaded a return of faintness, and remembering that she has some biscuits in her bag she took one out and ate it. The dry crumbs choked her, and she hastily swallowed a little brandy from her husband’s flask. The burning sensation in her throat acted as a counter-irritant, momentarily relieving the dull ache of her nerves. Then she felt a gently stealing warmth, as though a soft air fanned her, and the swarming fears relaxed their clutch, receding through the stillness that enclosed her, a stillness soothing as the spacious quietude of a summer day. She slept.
Through her sleep she felt the impetuous rush of the train. It seemed to be life itself that was sweeping her on with headlong inexorable force – sweeping her into darkness and terror, and the awe of unknown days. – Now all at once everything was still – not a sound, not a pulsation ... She was dead in her turn, and lay beside him with smooth upstaring face. How quiet it was! – and yet she heard feet coming, the feet of the men who were to carry them away ... She could feel too – she felt a sudden prolonged vibration, a series of hard rocks, and then another plunge into darkness: the darkness of death this time – a black whirlwind on which they were both spinning like leaves, in wild uncoiling spirals, with millions and millions of the dead ...
She sprang up in terror. Her sleep must have lasted a long time, for the winter day had paled and the lights had been lit. The car was in confusion, and as she regained her self-possession she saw that the passengers were gathering up their wraps and bags. The woman with the false braids had brought from the dressing-room a sickly ivy-plant in a bottle, and the Christian Scientist was reversing his cuffs. The porter passed down the aisle with his impartial brush. An impersonal figure with a gold-banded cap asked for her husband’s ticket. A voice shouted ‘Baig-gage express!’ and she heard the clicking of metal as the passengers handed over their checks.
Presently her window was blocked by an expanse of sooty wall, and the train passed into the Harlem tunnel. The journey was over; in a few minutes she would see her family pushing their joyous way through the throng at the station. Her heart dilated. The worst terror was past ...
‘We’d better get him up now, hadn’t we?’ asked the porter, touching her arm.
He had her husband’s hat in his hand and was meditatively revolving it under his brush.
She looked at the hat and tried to speak; but suddenly the car grew dark. She flung up her arms, struggling to catch at something, and fell face downward, striking her head against the dead man’s berth.
The Lady’s Maid’s Bell
I
It was the autumn after I had the typhoid. I’d been three months in hospital, and when I came out I looked so weak and tottery that the two or three ladies I applied to were afraid to engage me. Most of my money was gone, and after I’d boarded for two months, hanging about the employment-agencies, and answering any advertisement that looked any way respectable, I pretty nearly lost heart, for fretting hadn’t made me fatter, and I didn’t see why my luck should ever turn. It did though – or I thought so at the time. A Mrs Railton, a friend of the lady that first brought me out to the States, met me one day and stopped to speak to me: she was one that had always a friendly way with her. She asked me what ailed me to look so white, and when I told her, ‘Why, Hartley,’ says she, ‘I believe I’ve got the very place for you. Come in tomorrow and we’ll talk about it.’
The next day, when I called, she told me the lady she’d in mind was a niece of hers, a Mrs Brympton, a youngish lady, but something of an invalid, who lived all the year round at her country-place on the Hudson, owing to not being able to stand the fatigue of town life.
‘Now, Hartley,’ Mrs Railton said, in that cheery way that always made me feel things must be going to take a turn for the better – ‘now understand me; it’s not a cheerful place I’m sending you to. The house is big and gloomy; my niece is nervous, vapourish; her husband – well, he’s generally away; and the two children are dead. A year ago I would as soon have thought of shutting a rosy active girl like you into a vault; but you’re not particularly brisk yourself just now, are you? and a quiet place, with country air and wholesome food and early hours, ought to be the very thing for you. Don’t mistake me,’ she added, for I suppose I looked a trifle downcast; ‘you may find it dull, but you won’t be unhappy. My niece is an angel. Her former maid, who died last spring, had been with her twenty years and worshipped the ground she walked on. She’s a kind mistress to all, and where the mistress is kind, as you know, the servants are generally good-humoured, so you’ll probably get on well enough with the rest of the household. And you’re the very woman I want for my niece: quiet, well-mannered, and educated above your station. You read aloud well, I think? That’s a good thing; my niece likes to be read to. She wants a maid that can be something of a companion: her last was, and I can’t say how she misses her. It’s a lonely life Well, have you decided?’
‘Why, ma’am,’ I said, ‘I’m not afraid of solitude.’
‘Well, then, go; my niece will take you on my recommendation. I’ll telegraph her at once and you can take the afternoon train. She has no one to wait on her at present, and I don’t want you to lose any time.’
I was ready enough to start, yet something in me hung back; and to gain time I asked, ‘And the gentleman, ma’am?’
‘The gentleman’s almost always away, I tell you,’ said Mrs Railton, quick-like – ‘and when he’s there,’ says she suddenly, ‘you’ve only to keep out of his way.’
I took the afternoon train and got out at D— station at about four o’clock. A groom in a dog-cart was waiting, and we drove off at a smart pace. It was a dull October day, with rain hanging close overhead, and by the time we turned into Brympton Place woods the daylight was almost gone. The drive wound through the woods for a mile or two, and came out on a gravel court shut in with thickets of tall black-looking shrubs. There were no lights in the windows and the house did look a bit gloomy.
I had asked no questions of the groom, for I never was one to get my notion of new masters from their other servants: I prefer to wait and see for myself. But I could tell by the look of everything that I had got into the right kind of house, and that things were done handsomely. A pleasant-faced cook met me at the back door and called the housemaid to show me up to my room. ‘You’ll see madam later,’ she said. ‘Mrs Brympton has a visitor.’
I hadn’t fancied Mrs Brympton was a lady to have many visitors, and somehow the words cheered me. I followed the housemaid upstairs, and saw, through a door on the upper landing, that the main part of the house seemed well furnished, with dark panelling and a number of old portraits. Another flight of stairs led us up to the servants’ wing. It was almost dark now, and the housemaid excused herself for not hav
ing brought a light. ‘But there’s matches in your room,’ she said, ‘and if you go careful you’ll be all right. Mind the step at the end of the passage. Your room is just beyond.’
I looked ahead as she spoke, and half-way down the passage I saw a woman standing. She drew back into a doorway as we passed and the housemaid didn’t appear to notice her. She was a thin woman with a white face, and a darkish stuff gown and apron. I took her for the housekeeper and thought it odd that she didn’t speak, but just gave me a long look as she went by. My room opened into a square hall at the end of the passage. Facing my door was another which stood open; the housemaid exclaimed when she saw it:
‘There – Mrs Blinder’s left that door open again!’ said she, closing it.
‘Is Mrs Blinder the housekeeper?’
‘There’s no housekeeper: Mrs Blinder’s the cook.’
‘And is that her room?’
‘Laws, no,’ said the housemaid, cross-like. ‘That’s nobody’s room. It’s empty, I mean, and the door hadn’t ought to be open. Mrs Brympton wants it kept locked.’
She opened my door and led me into a neat room, nicely furnished, with a picture or two on the walls; and having lit a candle she took leave, telling me that the servants’-hall tea was at six, and that Mrs Brympton would see me afterwards.
I found them a pleasant-spoken set in the servants’ hall, and by what they let fall I gathered that, as Mrs Railton had said, Mrs Brympton was the kindest of ladies; but I didn’t take much notice of their talk, for I was watching to see the pale woman in the dark gown come in. She didn’t show herself, however, and I wondered if she ate apart; but if she wasn’t the housekeeper, why should she? Suddenly it struck me that she might be a trained nurse, and in that case her meals would of course be served in her room. If Mrs Brympton was an invalid it was likely enough she had a nurse. The idea annoyed me, I own, for they’re not always the easiest to get on with, and if I’d known I shouldn’t have taken the place. But there I was and there was no use pulling a long face over it; and not being one to ask questions I waited to see what would turn up.
The Ghost Feeler Page 6