CHAPTER XXXIII
THERE is very little about Mr. Burnaby’s death in Marcus’s journal—just a note of the date and the time. When I first went through Marcus’s papers I hoped and expected to come across some fuller account. There was nothing. I was disappointed, because I wanted to know if ‘The Last Experiment’ had actually taken place, and if so, what had happened. I thought at first that the experiment had not been made. I supposed that in the distress of his last illness Mr. Burnaby had forgotten about it, or that he had been too worn-out and apathetic to care any more. When, however, I came to interview Mrs. Mullan I gathered that Marcus had behaved very strangely at the time of Mr. Burnaby’s death. As she was a little incoherent I decided to go and see Dr. Sheehan and verify what she had told me. He did verify it in every particular, but as his account was much more straightforward than hers I will report it exactly.
Dr. Sheehan had left Portmallagh a few months before I arrived, and gone to Dublin, but I had no difficulty in getting his address. A week later I called on him. I had made an appointment and he was waiting for me when I arrived. He was a reddish-faced, vigorous looking man in his early thirties. He was living in a rather shabby terrace house in one of the older Dublin suburbs. I only saw the waiting-room and his consulting-room, where he received me. I got the impression that the house was only half-furnished, and the furniture I did see was well-worn. All the same Dr. Sheehan looked like a man who intended to get on in the world. He spoke with a slight Irish brogue, which I shan’t attempt to reproduce.
He looked busy and I explained at once why I had come.
“I’ve been commissioned to write a book about John Burnaby and Marcus Brownlow. I heard you had attended Mr. Burnaby in his last illness.”
“I did,” he answered at once. “That was a queer business. They were a queer pair, the two of them—him and the young fellow.”
“Why do you say it was queer?” I demanded.
“Because it was,” he replied. “The man was in a bad way when I was called in the first place—double pneumonia on the top of progressive muscular atrophy—if you know what that is?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” I confessed.
“It’s a kind of paralysis,” he explained. “It begins in the legs, with weakness in the legs. You can’t do anything about it. At first the patient finds it curtails his powers of walking. The muscles get tired: there’s a twitching in the muscles, and of course it spreads. After the legs the arms begin to go. It’s an unpleasant thing—usually takes about a couple of years.”
“And that’s what Mr. Burnaby had?”
“Yes, though it wasn’t what killed him. He died of pneumonia. That’s the way it usually goes. The patient gets something else, and with his resistance gone he can’t stand up to it.”
“I think I understand,” I said, “but what was queer about it?”
He shrugged his shoulders and I thought that perhaps I had annoyed him a little. “Oh, chiefly the young fellow, I suppose. I thought it was strange the way he went on. He was upset, but not quite the way you’d think somehow. I’d have thought there was something fishy if the symptoms hadn’t been quite clear. He seemed to be expecting the old man to die. He seemed more frightened of me, than worried about his boss dying—and then, when it got near the end, he wouldn’t stay in the room. I don’t know if he was frightened of death, or what it was; but half an hour or so before the man died he went away and shut himself up in his bedroom. I wasn’t there of course. I’d called in the morning and I knew very well it’d be all over by the time I got back in the evening. So it was too. I ran out at about half-past eight and was met by the housekeeper. She told me that young Brownlow had sent for her at about two o’clock and told her that he was going to his bedroom and must not be disturbed on any account—‘Not even if Mr. Burnaby dies,’ he told her. Then he left her to take charge of the sick-room. And when I came at half-past eight Brownlow was still in his bedroom and not a stir out of him.
“I didn’t know what to make of it. The idea of suicide did cross my mind—you never know with these neurotic types—and according to all the rumours they’d both been dabbling in spiritualism, or black magic, or something—though that didn’t come out till afterwards, now I come to think of it.”
“You thought that Marcus Brownlow might have committed suicide,” I put in for the sake of absolute clarity, “not Mr. Burnaby?”
“Oh no. I knew Mr. Burnaby hadn’t killed himself, and I didn’t really believe the young chap had. I thought he was just skulking as a matter of fact, but I had to make sure. So I went off and knocked on Master Brownlow’s bedroom door. No reply. I knocked again. Still no reply. Well I wasn’t going to be put off as easily as all that. So I started battering on the door with both fists and one foot. At last he opened it and blinked out at me. He looked at me in a dead-and-alive sort of way. He might have been lying low after a booze-up by the look of him.
“ ‘Been asleep?’ I asked.
“ ‘Not—not exactly,’ he said.
“ ‘Mr. Burnaby’s dead,’ I told him. ‘He’s been dead six hours.’
“ ‘I know,’ he said. ‘He died at twenty-nine minutes to three. What do you want?’ Funny how the exact words have stuck in my mind.
“Well I thought that pretty cool, and I went off the handle a bit—let him have it hot and strong. Somehow it didn’t seem to have much effect. He just went on blinking at me in a dazed sort of way and at the end asked me what he ought to do.
“I told him he ought to be making arrangements—funeral, notifying relations, and so on. Then, out of pure badness, I put in something about withholding the death certificate; an inquest might be necessary—I’d have to make sure there had been no neglect.
“That shook him a bit. He didn’t want an inquest. No one ever does; but he was scared of one.
“He kept looking over his shoulder all the time as if there was someone else in the room, listening to us. He’d kept the door half-closed. So I gave it another kick to see if there was anyone there, and it flew open: but there wasn’t, unless they were hiding in the wardrobe or under the bed.
“By this time he was pretty abject. I had him where I wanted him. I gave the certificate of course—I couldn’t do anything else. I’d no real reason for withholding it. If there had been an inquest I couldn’t have made anything of it. All the same I wasn’t very surprised when I read about his suicide. He was pretty unbalanced.”
That was all Dr. Sheehan could tell me, but it was enough to make me feel certain that the last experiment had taken place.
What then happened? What did this last experiment amount to? We can only guess: but to me the answer seems almost certain. Mr. Burnaby had instructed Marcus to behave exactly as he did—to go to his room, to put himself in a state of trance, and, in his disembodied state, to return to the sick-room. If Marcus succeeded in carrying out these instructions he must have been in touch with Mr. Burnaby’s spirit at the moment the physical Mr. Burnaby died.
Whether or not Marcus noticed the death taking place, at the time it did take place, I don’t feel quite certain. His remark to Dr. Sheehan about the time may have been half a question, designed to verify his earlier knowledge. What then was the outcome of the experiment? Simply, I think, that the spiritual Mr. Burnaby did not go away. His spirit remained with Marcus, it remained not only with the spiritual Marcus, when his spirit was disembodied, but with him all the time, or almost all the time, for the rest of his life. My reason for this assumption will appear in the following chapters.
And why did Marcus not record this—almost the most important fact of all—in his autobiography?
I think he couldn’t bear to. I think he found it too horrible to write about; or so horrible that he couldn’t write about it without describing his horror; he preferred to leave it out. That at any rate is my int
erpretation. If some reader has a better one I should be glad to know of it.
CHAPTER XXXIV
FROM conjecture I return to fact. After the funeral Marcus went home with his father. He stayed at home just over a month, returning to The Garrison early in September.
Before leaving home he had started to write his autobiography, and at The Garrison he went on with it. He thought it the easiest way to bring his knowledge, or a portion of his knowledge, before the public. He wrote from a sense of duty or because of an acceptance of Mr. Burnaby’s sense of duty. He himself did not care a great deal whether his knowledge was passed on or not: and as he didn’t like writing, the book advanced very slowly.
He kept the same hours as he had with Mr. Burnaby, and he spent most of his time in the tower. So far as the servants were concerned the routine of the house was exactly as it had been when Mr. Burnaby was alive. As master of the house, Marcus was more reserved, but less troublesome than Mr. Burnaby. The servants thought him queer, but they were accustomed to queerness. Presently they noticed that he had begun to talk to himself.
The first strange thing happened about Christmas 1936—the exact date is uncertain. I can’t explain what happened. I have no inside information. At least I have no information that explains it: there is information which in a way corroborates it.
As a rule Marcus’s lunch consisted of three courses—soup, meat, and pudding, followed by tea. Marcus didn’t like coffee. Usually he ate very little, but Mrs. Mullan always insisted that his meals should be served properly. She didn’t allow the food to be brought in on the plate from which he was to eat it.
On this day Kate was bringing in the lunch as usual. The table had been laid half an hour before, and almost automatically she carried in a small tureen of soup and a soup-plate. She thought Marcus was sitting at the table. She thought she put down the tureen and plate in front of him. As she was going out it struck her that he had not said, “Thank you very much”, as he did invariably, in an unchanging, slightly apologetic tone. With her hand on the door she turned to look at him. But instead of Marcus she saw Mr. Burnaby. She didn’t faint: she ran to the kitchen screaming. There she had hysterics: presently she told her mother and Susan what she had seen: Teresa wasn’t there. Some months previously she had gone to a place in Belfast.
Mrs. Mullan did not believe Kate’s story. Yet she believed enough to be frightened. They discussed it up and down, and Mrs. Mullan and Susan tried to explain it away. When the time came Mrs. Mullan took in the meat course herself. She felt it to be her duty: besides both Kate and Susan had refused point-blank to leave the kitchen. She found Marcus sitting in his place. He had finished his soup and was crumbling a piece of bread on the table. She thought he looked rather anxious. There was no sign of Mr. Burnaby.
She spoke to him—she does not remember what about—and he replied if not perfectly normally, normally enough. Mrs. Mullan says now that he seemed nervous. I think, however, that this nervousness may have been added as a result of later events. If she did feel something queer, as she says, she had no right to scold Kate—which was what she immediately set about doing on her return to the kitchen. Kate burst into tears and Susan, who was evidently the calmest member of the family, intervened to restore order. This scene, I may say, was described to me by the Mullans themselves, about a year after Marcus’s death. I remember particularly how vehemently—and volubly—Mrs. Mullan reproached herself for having doubted Kate’s word—“an’ her me own daughter!”
Susan took in the third course and the tea. She did not see Mr. Burnaby and to her Marcus looked much as usual. When the tea was being taken in Kate had recovered sufficiently to accompany Susan as far as the dining room door. She peeped in, and was a good deal reassured. She was inclined to think that she might have been rather silly. At the same time she was not convinced. She still felt that she had seen Mr. Burnaby, and in the course of the next few days this feeling had a definite effect on the others. They began to believe that something queer had occurred. There was an uncomfortable atmosphere in the house. They realized how odd Marcus was becoming.
After this Kate and Susan made a point of doing all their housework together; in particular neither of them would go into the tower alone. Mrs. Mullan confined her activities to the kitchen. While ridiculing her daughters’ fears she ran no risks herself.
A month went by without anything further happening to disturb them. Gradually they all grew more confident.
Then one day in January there was a fog. When the Mullans left their cottage it was not very thick, but all through the morning it drifted in from the sea. The house became more and more gloomy. Mrs. Mullan lit the lamp in the kitchen and blazed up the fire. Even so she felt cold. Outside she could see nothing but a greyish, billowy whiteness. She didn’t like it: she couldn’t get warm. She began to wish for a pink, woollen cardigan she had left hanging behind the kitchen door at home. She was a selfish old woman: she decided to send Susan for the cardigan. But she didn’t know where Susan was. Susan was somewhere about the house with Kate, turning out rooms. Mrs. Mullan went into the hall and called. There was no reply, and she felt angry. Those girls! They had probably heard her perfectly well and didn’t want to trouble themselves. She’d give them a piece of her mind. She put her head into the outer hall, and then went up the steps and through the black curtain into the tower. In the tower it was very dim. She climbed the stairs slowly, still calling. It occurred to her that if she had behaved like this in Mr. Burnaby’s time she would have got into trouble; but Marcus wasn’t so particular. Suddenly she realized that someone was coming down the stairs to meet her. For a moment she thought it was Marcus. Then she knew it was Mr. Burnaby. She squeezed herself against the wall. He didn’t look at her and he didn’t speak.
I won’t describe her feelings. She herself has described them fully to a great many people, and I’m sure will continue to do so to the day of her death.
In case however it should seem that I am inclined to give undue credit to the incident I should like to make it clear that I realize the following facts. It was almost completely dark on the tower stairs. Marcus and Mr. Burnaby were within two or three inches of the same height. Mrs. Mullan was, and is, just as superstitious as any other Irish peasant. What concerns this story is what she did.
She spent another five minutes on the stairs in a state of panic. As nothing further happened she gradually gathered sufficient courage to return to the kitchen. She had a pot of stew on the range and a pudding in the oven. She removed them both and put them on the kitchen table. She banked up the fire, closed the dampers, and put on her hat and coat. With a piece of half-burnt coal she wrote on the whitewashed kitchen wall where it would be most easily seen, “Come home at once, Mother.” The message was still on the wall in 1939. Probably it is there today. After writing it Mrs. Mullan went back to her cottage. Half an hour later she was joined by Susan and Kate.
What Marcus did about his lunch nobody knows.
Black didn’t learn of the Mullans’ departure till late in the evening. He didn’t believe in ghosts, and he felt very annoyed at Mrs. Mullan’s behaviour.
The next morning he encountered Marcus in the garden. He said that his wife would be willing to do the cooking and part of the housework till fresh servants could be found: but Marcus thought he could manage by himself if the Blacks would do his shopping for him.
Black had no wish to give up his job. He liked it and nothing had occurred to frighten him. He was glad to do whatever Marcus required. The only objection he made was when Marcus sent him to the Mullans’ cottage with a month’s wages for each of them. “They don’t deserve a penny piece,” he declared.
“But it doesn’t make any difference to me,” Marcus insisted, “and I’m sure they’ll need it.”
“Let them work for it,” Black retorted. “It’s the only way to teach them.” Nevertheless
he delivered the money, though, as he informed Marcus afterwards, he had taken the opportunity of telling Mrs. Mullan what he thought of her.
Black urged Marcus to get new servants. Even if he did not turn the Mullans out of their cottage, which belonged to The Garrison, there was plenty of room in the house itself for a housekeeper and two or three maids. Marcus, however, realized that it would be difficult to persuade servants to come to a house which was reputed to be haunted. Besides, if he knew all that was to happen to him, he must have foreseen quite clearly that there weren’t going to be any more servants at The Garrison. Whatever the reason—it may just have been apathy—he made no attempt to procure any.
To begin with he found it difficult enough to carry on. Black had to teach him how to light the range—and Marcus was very slow to get the hang of it. It would have been unlike him to be quick to pick up anything of that sort.
In the following weeks both the Blacks noticed that he seemed unwell. He got thinner and paler, and his expression began to alter. He looked not exactly desperate, but, as it were, doomed. He only came out occasionally. They didn’t know how he spent his time, but all through the nights there would be a light in one of the windows of the tower.
Black heard very few of the rumours that were going through the countryside. Those that he did hear he dismissed rather contemptuously. He and his wife kept to themselves. As Protestants in an entirely Roman Catholic area they were to a great extent out of touch with the rest of the community.
Two months passed before anything happened to disturb Black’s incredulity, but towards the end of March he did have a rather peculiar experience. He was coming up the back avenue in broad daylight when he saw someone coming towards him from the house. “That’s very like the Master,” he thought. “I’d swear it was the Master, if I didn’t know he was dead and buried.” Of course he immediately remembered Mrs. Mullan’s experience, but he was not alarmed. He and Mr. Burnaby had always been on the best of terms. He had been a loyal and faithful servant and he almost welcomed the opportunity of talking to Mr. Burnaby’s ghost. As the figure approached he touched his cap and was about to speak. It was Mr. Burnaby’s walk, but the face which looked at him and smiled at him with Mr. Burnaby’s smile was the face of Marcus. Black didn’t speak. He had been prepared to encounter a ghost. He didn’t know what to make of a living man inhabited by a ghost. He walked on for a little, and then turned round. The figure was still walking down the drive. Again it looked like Mr. Burnaby. Black saw it reach the gate, open it, and disappear behind the hedge which bordered the road. He was deeply puzzled, but he had work to do and he saw no reason for neglecting it. He went to the garage, backed out the car, and began to wash it. As he was hosing the wheels he decided to keep his experience to himself. If he told his wife it would only make her nervous, and Black was convinced that there was really nothing to be nervous about. He didn’t believe that a ghost could do either of them any harm.
The Burnaby Experiments Page 29