Ghosts in the House

by A. C. Benson

  ‘There are just two things more,’ I said; ‘what are these papers, after all?’

  ‘Ah! that I don’t know,’ said Bendyshe; ‘but I imagine that they are what Faulkner called his experiments – an account of what he did, or tried to do, and the devices by which he carried them out. The force he used was fear, and the question is, how can you frighten people purely through the agency of the mind? We must remember that Faulkner was a very able man, and that the sergeant was clever enough in his way too – and that they were both men of remarkable courage and force of character.’

  ‘And if we grant that,’ I said, ‘what do they want to do with the papers?’

  ‘My belief,’ said Bendyshe, ‘is that they just want to guard them – to preserve them somehow. I don’t think they have a very clear idea about them. They don’t want them to be made public, and yet they want to hand on their secrets to someone who will use them. If any of us three, for instance, were a man inclined to make use of these evil agencies, we should encounter no opposition; but at present they simply know that we are hostile, that we want to find the papers, and perhaps to put an end to them; and this they mean to prevent as well as they can.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I said.

  ‘I am afraid that the question rather is,’ said Bendyshe, ‘what are they going to do?’

  The words were hardly out of his lips when an answer came – a thin high mocking laugh was heard in the air, in the middle of us. I can’t say how inexpressibly horrible it was, to feel in the presence of something hostile and derisive, and yet not to know what it could do or might do. The horror was that it was there. The silent auditor knew what we had said and what was in our minds; and we could do nothing. It seemed to me for a moment as if I should lose control of myself, and that my brain would give way under the consciousness of this unseen and intangible presence. I looked at Bendyshe, and he was sitting clasping the arms of his chair, looking down and frowning.

  The Vicar rose unsteadily to his feet, his face very pale. ‘Merciful God,’ he said, ‘here have I been fighting with evil all my days, and trying to think it was weaker than good – and now that I am confronted with it, I can do nothing – nothing.’

  ‘No,’ said Bendyshe, looking up; ‘that isn’t so, Vicar! You have a far stronger hold of this business than either Hartley or myself. We are just fighting for ourselves and our sanity, but you have got bigger forces with you. I want to ask you one thing; Hartley and I – or I – must go and find this thing, whatever it is – and there’s no time to be lost! The longer we put it off, the worse it will be. But will you stay with us, and see the end? Whatever happens, you must not lose faith.’

  When Bendyshe spoke of the necessity of our going straight to our goal and without delay, I confess that I had an access of fear more terrible than anything I had ever experienced. The blood seemed to stand still in my brain – my strength seemed to ebb from me; but I felt too that the idea of giving up, of turning tail now, would leave even a worse legacy of terror behind. It was not a question of moral courage – there simply was no way out.

  The Vicar said nothing in reply, but he put up his hand – clasped first Bendyshe’s and then mine. And the next minute we were out in the hall. Then Bendyshe took command.

  We had risen, and stood looking at each other in silence.

  ‘Now, don’t hurry,’ Bendyshe said. ‘Try just to think of what we are going to do. I shall want something to prise up the boards with. I know!’ He went back to the smoking-room, and returned in a moment with an old ice-axe. Its blade was protected by a leathern cover, and Bendyshe slipped it off. Then he strode to the foot of the stairs and went deliberately up; I followed him, and the Vicar followed me. In a moment we were on the landing. The house was deathly still, with a brooding stillness, like that of a thunder-cloud. Bendyshe drew out his key, and produced two electric torches from his pocket, and then said, ‘Now, I go first, because I know where the thing is; and when I am up the ladder – in the loft, Hartley – you come up; and, Vicar, will you stay in the room, and lend a hand? And mind this – they can do nothing so long as we don’t fear them; or if we do, we must behave as if we did not.’

  Then he unlocked the door, and we went into the room. Bendyshe clicked on both the electric torches, and gave one to the Vicar. The moon was shining bright, and the shadow of the casements lay dark on the floor.

  Then I suddenly became aware of a strange shadow, of an impenetrable blackness, in the corner of the room under the trap-door. But Bendyshe strode out straight to the foot of the ladder, and seemed to me for a moment engulfed in darkness. I followed close behind; and there was nothing there. ‘You see,’ said Bendyshe to me in a low tone – ‘it will all be like that.’

  But as we stood together at the foot of the ladder, a stream of ice-cold air came gushing down from the hole in the ceiling, as if coming out of some frozen cave, so cold that I felt my very bones shivering under their covering of flesh. But Bendyshe slipped his hand through the loop of the axe, and then very slowly and deliberately began to ascend the ladder. ‘Come when I call,’ he said, ‘and not before.’ I looked round; the Vicar was on his knees in prayer; but neither that nor Bendyshe’s courage gave me any relief. I just thought of the next thing I had to do. Bendyshe disappeared through the hole, and I heard him step out on the floor of the loft. Then he said, ‘Now come!’ The Vicar held his torch up to illuminate the steps of the ladder, and step by step I went slowly up in the icy air.

  As soon as my head and shoulders were in the loft, I felt Bendyshe grasp my arm. ‘Steady,’ he said, ‘step carefully.’ Bendyshe raised his torch, which sent a long stream of light down the loft, and then in the silence came a strange tremor and agitation of the empty air. ‘Now,’ said Bendyshe, ‘it will be all over in a moment! Hold on to the top of the ladder, and keep your eye on me.’ He walked slowly along the loft, to a place about twenty feet away, looking carefully at the boards and turning the torch down on them. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘come up here slowly and hold the torch for me – this is the place!’

  Bendyshe bent his head down, and examined the boards. Then he raised his axe and delivered a tremendous blow at the chink between the boards, and then another. The chips of the broken board flew out on the floor; suddenly from the hole he had made there was protruded a dusky thing. It was the head of a great snake; I could see its dull blinking eyes, the black spots that ran in a chain down its forehead, its flickering tongue, and the greenish pallor of its throat. Bendyshe struck another blow and the creature came out, reared itself up as though to strike at us, and then as suddenly darted back into the hole again. Bendyshe again raised the axe, and struck fearlessly again. There was now a considerable hole between the boards, and he reversed the axe, inserted the point under the loose board, and putting his foot on the head of the axe brought it down like a lever; the board cracked and split; Bendyshe dropped the axe, and bending down seized the board and tore it up.

  A dreadful sight met my eyes. The whole cavity was filled with snakes, entwining, interlocked, writhing; sometimes a head was put up from the mass, and sometimes half a dozen would detach themselves and wriggle over the floor. I must confess that I was now half frantic with horror. But Bendyshe plunged his hands into the mass of snakes, and drew out an old leather despatch-box covered with dust. ‘This is it,’ he said; and I was bending down to look at it, when a thing more dreadful than any of our previous experiences occurred. The icy air beat upon us, and turning my head, I saw standing behind us, stiff and upright, a corpse, swathed in grave-clothes, with pale leaden-coloured hands hanging down; the face was of the same hue, with a fringe of ragged-looking grey hair straggling over the forehead. It had a faint smile, it seemed, on its lips, and its dull eyes, grey like chalcedony, looked fixedly at the opening in the floor; and then a heavy odour of corruption began to spread around us. And then for a moment I wished that I had died rather than have come into this place of horrors. Bendyshe himself turned, and confronted the gaze of th
e figure. Then he signed to me to pick up the torch and axe, and walked firmly down the loft to the ladder’s head.

  ‘Go down first,’ he said, ‘and I will lower the box to you – don’t leave go of it, whatever happens.’ And so I pushed on. It was no time to hesitate. I climbed hastily down the ladder, and on reaching the floor, saw the Vicar standing with his back to me, looking out of the window. But I had no time to attend to anything else, and cried out in a cautious tone, ‘Now, the box’ – and it appeared from the orifice. I seized hold of it, and a moment later Bendyshe began to descend the ladder. But when he reached me, I saw that his strength was failing. At that moment the Vicar turned round, and came up to me with outstretched hands as if to receive the box. I was about to hand it to him, when Bendyshe cried out in an unsteady voice, ‘No, no – keep hold of it, I say – don’t you see?’

  And then I hardly knew for a moment what happened. Something seemed to rush towards me in a passion half of rage, half of entreaty. I was fighting with shadows. The figure that I had thought to be the Vicar came nearer and looked me in the face – and it was Faulkner himself, in a fury of baffled rage and despair, such as a human mind can hardly conceive; and while I gazed fascinated, I heard Bendyshe come close beside me; and the Vicar himself came forward out of the dark corner of the room, and after that I knew no more.

  I awoke not long after from a kind of stupor. I was conscious of having been led and propelled down the corridor. I was in my bedroom, lying on my bed, and the Vicar was sitting beside me with a very anxious face. ‘How do you feel?’ he said in a gentle voice.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I’m all right – in mind, that is; I feel very tired and battered, but not damaged, at least not irretrievably. What I most want is sleep, I think. I suppose I fainted?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Vicar, ‘and I was afraid it was worse; but don’t let us talk about that now.’

  ‘Where is Bendyshe?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, he is all right,’ said the Vicar; ‘he has just gone to get something for you. He will be here in a moment. He is very anxious, and so am I, that we should settle at once, without any delay, about these papers, whatever they are. But he and I disagree; and if you feel up to it, he would like to have your opinion.’

  ‘I don’t know that my opinion is worth much just now,’ I said.

  But at that moment Bendyshe entered the room with a little cut-glass flask in his hand. He showed few traces of an ordeal – indeed he looked more self-possessed and determined than ever. He carried the box with him, I noticed. He came to my bedside and took my hand. ‘Well, old man,’ he said, ‘this is a good sight! I was afraid … well, I won’t say what I feared, but I felt that if things had gone wrong, I should never have forgiven myself for bringing you in. How are you feeling – only a faint, you think? Well, I am sure of it – heart, not brain, gave way.’ He poured something out of the flask, a clear aromatic liquid, and asked me to drink it off. ‘It is quite harmless,’ he said. ‘It will give you an extreme lucidity of mind for about half an hour, and then the best sleep you have ever had in your life.’

  I drank it, and the other two sat in silence. A few minutes later I sat up and said, ‘It is very strange – I could not have believed I could have felt like this. I can remember and see quite clearly all that happened yesterday – was it yesterday? But there’s no horror about it. I feel extraordinarily happy – something poisonous seems to have cleared away, and I don’t think it will come back.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bendyshe, ‘I think we have cleared the air somewhat – blown up the wasps’ nest, perhaps! But now – do you feel fit to hear two sides of a question? These horrible papers – what is to be done with them? My own view is that I should go through them carefully. They may have immense evidential value. Here is the packet.’ He opened the despatch-box – I noticed that he had forced the lid – and took out a small packet of papers, not more than a hundred sheets, I guessed, carefully tied up with black ribbon, and sealed with two large seals. He put the packet in my hands. On the first page was written in a bold handwriting, ‘A record of experiments made at Hebden Manor-house between the years 1890 and 1903, with the results obtained by Hugh Faulkner and Harry M’Gee. It is earnestly desired that anyone into whose hands they may come will have them examined by someone of scientific eminence, as they deal with the surprising development of a comparatively unknown psychical force, the results of which have been of extraordinary character.’ It was signed ‘Hugh Faulkner.’

  ‘Mind,’ said Bendyshe, ‘I will take the entire and sole responsibility for examining the packet; and I will add that if I had been able to find the packet unaided – as I think I should have done – I should have gone through the whole thing with the utmost care.’

  ‘Bendyshe,’ said the Vicar, very gravely – and I saw that he was in a state of great depression and exhaustion – ‘I implore you not to speak like this! If you had attempted to take possession of the packet single-handed, it would have cost you your reason, and perhaps your life. It may be that you would have lost something even more precious than life. And I must say something more, painful though it may be. You are not as strong as you think! You are in greater danger at the moment than you were in either of your two visits to that unholy place up there. My feeling is that the papers should be instantly destroyed. I regard them as I would regard a case which I knew to contain the living germs of all the deadliest diseases known to humanity. For you to read them would be deliberately to introduce into your own spirit the most satanical of all infections.’

  Bendyshe listened to the Vicar’s words with a look of ill-concealed impatience, and then turning to me, he said, ‘Now, Hartley, it is for you to decide. The quest was mine, and it was the Vicar’s duty to help me; but you are the volunteer, who might have been a martyr, who made the search successful. I leave it in your hands.’

  ‘Bendyshe,’ I said, ‘you have given me a dreadful task. I see what you feel about it, but I have no sort of doubt that the Vicar is right. We have torn the evil out by the roots, with terrible risks; and you would propose to plant it again for the sake of scientific curiosity?’

  Bendyshe stood holding the packet in his hands.

  ‘You would destroy knowledge which has been paid for by a man’s soul,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Vicar, ‘because it is the price of blood – and you dare not traffic with that!’

  I looked up; and in a flash I saw, a little way from the group, the figure of Faulkner kneeling, his hands clasped and a look of agonised entreaty on his face. I lost control of myself. ‘It must be destroyed at once,’ I said, ‘now and here!’

  ‘Very well,’ said Bendyshe, ‘I yield – but I shall regret it all my life!’ He said no more, but drew a knife from his pocket, cut the ribbon, drew out a mass of closely-written sheets, stuffed them loosely into the empty hearth, and set fire to the heap. The little pile flared up, and in five minutes was a glowing lump, the writing standing out in lines of fire; and a moment later it was nothing but ashes. And at that moment Bendyshe and the Vicar, who had been gazing at the fire, looked up; and they too saw the figure of Faulkner. But then a strange thing happened, and so swiftly that I can hardly say what it was – a figure in white, young, radiant, smiling, seemed to step up to Faulkner from behind, like a bringer of good tidings.

  Bendyshe put his hand before his eyes. The Vicar clasped his hands together. ‘The uttermost farthing!’ he said in a tone of intense joy, ‘and he departs thence – that is the mercy of God.’

  FATHER MACCLESFIELD’S TALE

  R.H. Benson

  Monsignor Maxwell announced at dinner that he had already arranged for the evening’s entertainment. A priest, whose acquaintance he had made on the Palatine, was leaving for England the next morning; and it was our only chance therefore of hearing his story. That he had a story had come to the Canon’s knowledge in the course of a conversation on the previous afternoon.

  ‘He told me the outline of it,’ he said. ‘I think it v
ery remarkable. But I had a great deal of difficulty in persuading him to repeat it to the company this evening. But he promised at last. I trust, gentlemen, you do not think I have presumed in begging him to do so.’

  Father Macclesfield arrived at supper.

  He was a little unimposing dry man, with a hooked nose and grey hair. He was rather silent at supper; but there was no trace of shyness in his manner as he took his seat upstairs, and without glancing round once, began in an even and dispassionate voice:

  ‘I once knew a Catholic girl that married an old Protestant three times her own age. I entreated her not to do so; but it was useless. And when the disillusionment came she used to write to me piteous letters, telling me that her husband had in reality no religion at all. He was a convinced infidel; and scouted even the idea of the soul’s immortality.

  ‘After two years of married life the old man died. He was about sixty years old; but very hale and hearty till the end.

  ‘Well, when he took to his bed, the wife sent for me; and I had half-a-dozen interviews with him; but it was useless. He told me plainly that he wanted to believe – in fact he said that the thought of annihilation was intolerable to him. If he had had a child he would not have hated death so much; if his flesh and blood in any manner survived him, he could have fancied that he had a sort of vicarious life left; but as it was there was no kith or kin of his alive; and he could not bear that.’

  Father Macclesfield sniffed cynically, and folded his hands.

  ‘I may say that his death-bed was extremely unpleasant. He was a coarse old fellow, with plenty of strength in him; and he used to make remarks about the churchyard – and – and in fact the worms, that used to send his poor child of a wife half fainting out of the room. He had lived an immoral life too, I gathered.

  ‘Just at the last it was – well – disgusting. He had no consideration (God knows why she married him!) The agony was a very long one; he caught at the curtains round the bed; calling out; and all his words were about death, and the dark. It seemed to me that he caught hold of the curtains as if to hold himself into this world. And at the very end he raised himself clean up in bed, and stared horribly out of the window that was open just opposite.