The Big Book of Ghost Stories

by Otto Penzler

  Winter was dying hard, and dark days of rain kept Miss Gribbin, Monica, and Everton within doors. He lacked no opportunities of keeping the child under observation, and once, on a gloomy afternoon, passing the room which she had named the schoolroom, he paused and listened until he became suddenly aware that his conduct bore an unpleasant resemblance to eavesdropping. The psychologist and the gentleman engaged in a brief struggle in which the gentleman temporarily got the upper hand. Everton approached the door with a heavy step and flung it open.

  The sensation he received, as he pushed open the door, was vague but slightly disturbing, and it was by no means new to him. Several times of late, but generally after dark, he had entered an empty room with the impression that it had been occupied by others until the very moment of his crossing the threshold. His coming disturbed not merely one or two, but a crowd. He felt rather than heard them scattering, flying swiftly and silently as shadows to incredible hiding-places, where they held breath and watched and waited for him to go. Into the same atmosphere of tension he now walked, and looked about him as if expecting to see more than only the child who held the floor in the middle of the room, or some tell-tale trace of other children in hiding. Had the room been furnished he must have looked involuntarily for shoes protruding from under tables or settees, for ends of garments unconsciously left exposed.

  The long room, however, was empty save for Monica from wainscot to wainscot and from floor to ceiling. Fronting him were the long high windows starred by fine rain. With her back to the white filtered light Monica faced him, looking up to him as he entered. He was just in time to see a smile fading from her lips. He also saw by a slight convulsive movement of her shoulders that she was hiding something from him in the hands clasped behind her back.

  “Hullo,” he said, with a kind of forced geniality, “what are you up to?”

  She said: “Nothing,” but not as sullenly as she would once have said it.

  “Come,” said Everton, “that is impossible. You were talking to yourself, Monica. You should not do that. It is an idle and very, very foolish habit. You will go mad if you continue to do that.”

  She let her head droop a little.

  “I wasn’t talking to myself,” she said in a low, half playful but very deliberate tone.

  “That’s nonsense. I heard you.”

  “I wasn’t talking to myself.”

  “But you must have been. There is nobody else here.”

  “There isn’t—now.”

  “What do you mean? Now?”

  “They’ve gone. You frightened them, I expect.”

  “What do you mean?” he repeated, advancing a step or two towards her. “And whom do you call ‘they’?”

  Next moment he was angry with himself. His tone was so heavy and serious and the child was half laughing at him. It was as if she were triumphant at having inveigled him into taking a serious part in her own game of make-believe.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” she said.

  “I understand this—that you are wasting your time and being a very silly little girl. What’s that you’re hiding behind your back?”

  She held out her right hand at once, unclenched her fingers and disclosed a thimble. He looked at it and then into her face.

  “Why did you hide that from me?” he asked. “There was no need.”

  She gave him a faint secretive smile—that new smile of hers—before replying.

  “We were playing with it. I didn’t want you to know.”

  “You were playing with it, you mean. And why didn’t you want me to know?”

  “About them. Because I thought you wouldn’t understand. You don’t understand.”

  He saw that it was useless to affect anger or show impatience. He spoke to her gently, even with an attempt at displaying sympathy.

  “Who are ‘they’?” he asked.

  “They’re just them. Other girls.”

  “I see. And they come and play with you, do they? And they run away whenever I’m about, because they don’t like me. Is that it?”

  She shook her head.

  “It isn’t that they don’t like you. I think they like everybody. But they’re so shy. They were shy of me for a long, long time. I knew they were there, but it was weeks and weeks before they’d come and play with me. It was weeks before I even saw them.”

  “Yes? Well, what are they like?”

  “Oh, they’re just girls. And they’re awfully, awfully nice. Some are a bit older than me and some are a bit younger. And they don’t dress like other girls you see to-day. They’re in white with longer skirts and they wear sashes.”

  Everton inclined his head gravely. “She got that out of the illustrations of books in the library,” he reflected.

  “You don’t happen to know their names, I suppose?” he asked, hoping that no quizzical note in his voice rang through the casual but sincere tone which he intended.

  “Oh, yes. There’s Mary Hewitt—I think I love her best of all—and Elsie Power and——”

  “How many of them altogether?”

  “Seven. It’s just a nice number. And this is the schoolroom where we play games. I love games. I wish I’d learned to play games before.”

  “And you’ve been playing with the thimble?”

  “Yes. Hunt-the-thimble they call it. One of us hides it, and then the rest of us try to find it, and the one who finds it hides it again.”

  “You mean you hide it yourself, and then go and find it.”

  The smile left her face at once, and the look in her eyes warned him that she was done with confidences.

  “Ah!” she exclaimed. “You don’t understand after all. I somehow knew you wouldn’t.”

  Everton, however, thought he did. His face wore a sudden smile of relief.

  “Well, never mind,” he said. “But I shouldn’t play too much if I were you.”

  With that he left her. But curiosity tempted him, not in vain, to linger and listen for a moment on the other side of the door which he had closed behind him. He heard Monica whisper:

  “Mary! Elsie! Come on. It’s all right. He’s gone now.”

  At an answering whisper, very unlike Monica’s, he started violently and then found himself grinning at his own discomfiture. It was natural that Monica, playing many parts, should try to change her voice with every character. He went downstairs sunk in a brown study which brought him to certain interesting conclusions. A little later he communicated these to Miss Gribbin.

  “I’ve discovered the cause of the change in Monica. She’s invented for herself some imaginary friends—other little girls, of course.”

  Miss Gribbin started slightly and looked up from the newspaper which she had been reading.

  “Really?” she exclaimed. “Isn’t that rather an unhealthy sign?”

  “No, I should say not. Having imaginary friends is quite a common symptom of childhood, especially among young girls. I remember my sister used to have one, and was very angry when none of the rest of us would take the matter seriously. In Monica’s case I should say it was perfectly normal—normal, but interesting. She must have inherited an imagination from that father of hers, with the result that she has seven imaginary friends, all properly named, if you please. You see, being lonely, and having no friends of her own age, she would naturally invent more than one ‘friend.’ They are all nicely and primly dressed, I must tell you, out of Victorian books which she has found in the library.”

  “It can’t be healthy,” said Miss Gribbin, pursing her lips. “And I can’t understand how she has learned certain expressions and a certain style of talking and games——”

  “All out of books. And pretends to herself that ‘they’ have taught her. But the most interesting part of the affair is this: it’s given me my first practical experience of telepathy, of the existence of which I have hitherto been rather sceptical. Since Monica invented this new game, and before I was aware that she had done so, I have had at different times distinct impress
ions of there being a lot of little girls about the house.”

  Miss Gribbin started and stared. Her lips parted as if she were about to speak, but it was as if she had changed her mind while framing the first word she had been about to utter.

  “Monica,” he continued smiling, “invented these ‘friends,’ and has been making me telepathically aware of them, too. I have lately been most concerned about the state of my nerves.”

  Miss Gribbin jumped up as if in anger, but her brow was smooth and her mouth dropped at the corners.

  “Mr. Everton,” she said, “I wish you had not told me all this.” Her lips worked. “You see,” she added unsteadily, “I don’t believe in telepathy.”

  IV

  Easter, which fell early that year, brought little Gladys Parslow home for the holidays to the Vicarage. The event was shortly afterwards signalized by a note from the Vicar to Everton, inviting him to send Monica down to have tea and play games with his little daughter on the following Wednesday.

  The invitation was an annoyance and an embarrassment to Everton. Here was the disturbing factor, the outside influence, which might possibly thwart his experiment in the upbringing of Monica. He was free, of course, simply to decline the invitation so coldly and briefly as to make sure that it would not be repeated; but the man was not strong enough to stand on his own feet impervious to the winds of criticism. He was sensitive and had little wish to seem churlish, still less to appear ridiculous. Taking the line of least resistance he began to reason that one child, herself no older than Monica, and in the atmosphere of her own home, could make but little impression. It ended in his allowing Monica to go.

  Monica herself seemed pleased at the prospect of going but expressed her pleasure in a discreet, restrained, grown-up way. Miss Gribbin accompanied her as far as the Vicarage doorstep, arriving with her punctually at half-past three on a sullen and muggy afternoon, and handed her over to the woman-of-all-work who answered the summons at the door.

  Miss Gribbin reported to Everton on her return. An idea which she conceived to be humorous had possession of her mind, and in talking to Everton she uttered one of her infrequent laughs.

  “I only left her at the door,” she said, “so I didn’t see her meet the other little girl. I wish I’d stayed to see that. It must have been funny.”

  She irritated Everton by speaking exactly as if Monica were a captive animal which had just been shown, for the first time in its life, another of its own kind. The analogy thus conveyed to Everton was close enough to make him wince. He felt something like a twinge of conscience, and it may have been then that he asked himself for the first time if he were being fair to Monica.

  It had never once occurred to him to ask himself if she were happy. The truth was that he understood children so little as to suppose that physical cruelty was the one kind of cruelty from which they were capable of suffering. Had he ever before troubled to ask himself if Monica were happy, he had probably given the question a curt dismissal with the thought that she had no right to be otherwise. He had given her a good home, even luxuries, together with every opportunity to develop her mind. For companions she had himself, Miss Gribbin, and, to a limited extent, the servants.…

  Ah, but that picture, conjured up by Miss Gribbin’s words with their accompaniment of unreasonable laughter! The little creature meeting for the first time another little creature of its own kind and looking bewildered, knowing neither what to do nor what to say. There was pathos in that—uncomfortable pathos for Everton. Those imaginary friends—did they really mean that Monica had needs of which he knew nothing, of which he had never troubled to learn?

  He was not an unkind man, and it hurt him to suspect that he might have committed an unkindness. The modern children whose behavior and manners he disliked, were perhaps only obeying some inexorable law of evolution. Suppose in keeping Monica from their companionship he were actually flying in the face of Nature? Suppose, after all, if Monica were to be natural, she must go unhindered on the tide of her generation?

  He compromised with himself, pacing the little study. He would watch Monica much more closely, question her when he had the chance. Then, if he found she was not happy, and really needed the companionship of other children, he would see what could be done.

  But when Monica returned home from the Vicarage it was quite plain that she had not enjoyed herself. She was subdued, and said very little about her experience. Quite obviously the two little girls had not made very good friends. Questioned, Monica confessed that she did not like Gladys—much. She said this very thoughtfully with a little pause before the adverb.

  “Why don’t you like her?” Everton demanded bluntly.

  “I don’t know. She’s so funny. Not like other girls.”

  “And what do you know about other girls?” he demanded, faintly amused.

  “Well, she’s not a bit like——”

  Monica paused suddenly and lowered her gaze.

  “Not like your ‘friends,’ you mean?” Everton asked.

  She gave him a quick, penetrating little glance and then lowered her gaze once more.

  “No,” she said, “not a bit.”

  She wouldn’t be, of course. Everton teased the child with no more questions for the time being, and let her go. She ran off at once to the great empty room, there to seek that uncanny companionship which had come to suffice her.

  For the moment Everton was satisfied. Monica was perfectly happy as she was, and had no need of Gladys, or, probably any other child friends. His experiment with her was shaping successfully. She had invented her own young friends, and had gone off eagerly to play with the creations of her own fancy.

  This seemed very well at first. Everton reflected that it was just what he would have wished, until he realized suddenly with a little shock of discomfort that it was not normal and it was not healthy.

  V

  Although Monica plainly had no great desire to see any more of Gladys Parslow, common civility made it necessary for the Vicar’s little daughter to be asked to pay a return visit. Most likely Gladys Parslow was as unwilling to come as was Monica to entertain her. Stern discipline, however, presented her at the appointed time on an afternoon prearranged by correspondence, when Monica received her coldly and with dignity, tempered by a sort of grownup graciousness.

  Monica bore her guest away to the big empty room, and that was the last of Gladys Parslow seen by Everton or Miss Gribbin that afternoon. Monica appeared alone when the gong sounded for tea, and announced in a subdued tone that Gladys had already gone home.

  “Did you quarrel with her?” Miss Gribbin asked quickly.

  “No-o.”

  “Then why has she gone like this?”

  “She was stupid,” said Monica, simply. “That’s all.”

  “Perhaps it was you who was stupid. Why did she go?”

  “She got frightened.”

  “Frightened!”

  “She didn’t like my friends.”

  Miss Gribbin exchanged glances with Everton.

  “She didn’t like a silly little girl who talks to herself and imagines things. No wonder she was frightened.”

  “She didn’t think they were real at first, and laughed at me,” said Monica, sitting down.

  “Naturally!”

  “And then when she saw them——”

  Miss Gribbin and Everton interrupted her simultaneously, repeating in unison and with well-matched astonishment, her two last words.

  “And when she saw them,” Monica continued, unperturbed, “she didn’t like it. I think she was frightened. Anyhow, she said she wouldn’t stay and went straight off home. I think she’s a stupid girl. We all had a good laugh about her after she was gone.”

  She spoke in her ordinary matter-of-fact tones, and if she were secretly pleased at the state of perturbation into which her last words had obviously thrown Miss Gribbin she gave no sign of it. Miss Gribbin immediately exhibited outward signs of anger.

  “You are a ve
ry naughty child to tell such untruths. You know perfectly well that Gladys couldn’t have seen your ‘friends.’ You have simply frightened her by pretending to talk to people who weren’t there, and it will serve you right if she never comes to play with you again.”

  “She won’t,” said Monica. “And she did see them, Miss Gribbin.”

  “How do you know?” Everton asked.

  “By her face. And she spoke to them too, when she ran to the door. They were very shy at first because Gladys was there. They wouldn’t come for a long time, but I begged them, and at last they did.”

  Everton checked another outburst from Miss Gribbin with a look. He wanted to learn more, and to that end he applied some show of patience and gentleness.

  “Where did they come from?” he asked. “From outside the door?”

  “Oh, no. From where they always come.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t seem to know themselves. It’s always from some direction where I’m not looking. Isn’t it strange?”

  “Very! And do they disappear in the same way?”

  Monica frowned very seriously and thoughtfully.

  “It’s so quick you can’t tell where they go. When you or Miss Gribbin come in——”

  “They always fly on our approach, of course. But why?”

  “Because they’re dreadfully, dreadfully shy. But not so shy as they were. Perhaps soon they’ll get used to you and not mind at all.”

  “That’s a comforting thought!” said Everton with a dry laugh.

  When Monica had taken her tea and departed, Everton turned to his secretary.

  “You are wrong to blame the child. These creatures of her fancy are perfectly real to her. Her powers of suggestion have been strong enough to force them to some extent on me. The little Parslow girl, being younger and more receptive, actually sees them. It is a clear case of telepathy and autosuggestion. I have never studied such matters, but I should say that these instances are of some scientific interest.”