The Haunted Hotel

by Wilkie Collins

  The Americans are not only the most hospitable people to be found on the face of the earth – they are (under certain conditions) the most patient and good-tempered people as well. But they are human; and the limit of American endurance is found in the obsolete institution of a bedroom candle. The American traveller, in the present case, declined to believe that his bedroom was in a complete finished state without a gas-burner. The manager pointed to the fine antique decorations (renewed and regilt) on the walls and the ceiling, and explained that the emanations of burning gas-light would certainly spoil them in the course of a few months. To this the traveller replied that it was possible, but that he did not understand decorations. A bedroom with gas in it was what he was used to, was what he wanted, and was what he was determined to have. The compliant manager volunteered to ask some other gentleman, housed on the inferior upper storey (which was lit throughout with gas), to change rooms. Hearing this, and being quite willing to exchange a small bedchamber for a large one, Henry volunteered to be the other gentleman. The excellent American shook hands with him on the spot. ‘You are a cultured person, sir,’ he said; ‘and you will no doubt understand the decorations.’

  Henry looked at the number of the room on the door as he opened it. The number was Fourteen.

  Tired and sleepy, he naturally anticipated a good night’s rest. In the thoroughly healthy state of his nervous system, he slept as well in a bed abroad as in a bed at home. Without the slightest assignable reason, however, his just expectations were disappointed. The luxurious bed, the well-ventilated room, the delicious tranquillity of Venice by night, all were in favour of his sleeping well. He never slept at all. An indescribable sense of depression and discomfort kept him waking through darkness and daylight alike. He went down to the coffee-room as soon as the hotel was astir, and ordered some breakfast. Another unaccountable change in himself appeared with the appearance of the meal. He was absolutely without appetite. An excellent omelette, and cutlets cooked to perfection, he sent away untasted – he, whose appetite never failed him, whose digestion was still equal to any demands on it!

  The day was bright and fine. He sent for a gondola, and was rowed to the Lido.

  Out on the airy Lagoon, he felt like a new man. He had not left the hotel ten minutes before he was fast asleep in the gondola. Waking, on reaching the landing-place, he crossed the Lido, and enjoyed a morning’s swim in the Adriatic. There was only a poor restaurant on the island, in those days; but his appetite was now ready for anything; he ate whatever was offered to him, like a famished man. He could hardly believe, when he reflected on it, that he had sent away 3. his excellent breakfast at the hotel.

  Returning to Venice, he spent the rest of the day in the picture-galleries and the churches. Towards six o’clock his gondola took him back, with another fine appetite, to meet some travelling acquaintances with whom he had engaged to dine at the table d’hote.

  The dinner was deservedly rewarded with the highest approval by every guest in the hotel but one. To Henry’s astonishment, the appetite with which he had entered the house mysteriously and completely left him when he sat down to table. He could drink some wine, but he could literally eat nothing. ‘What in the world is the matter with you?’ his travelling acquaintances asked. He could honestly answer, ‘I know no more than you do.’

  When night came, he gave his comfortable and beautiful bedroom another trial. The result of the second experiment was a repetition of the result of the first. Again he felt the all-pervading sense of depression and discomfort. Again he passed a sleepless night. And once more, when he tried to eat his breakfast, his appetite completely failed him!

  This personal experience of the new hotel was too extraordinary to be passed over in silence. Henry mentioned it to his friends in the public room, in the hearing of the manager. The manager, naturally zealous in defence of the hotel, was a little hurt at the implied reflection cast on Number Fourteen. He invited the travellers present to judge for themselves whether Mr Westwick’s bedroom was to blame for Mr Westwick’s sleepless nights; and he especially appealed to a grey-headed gentleman, a guest at the breakfast-table of an English traveller, to take the lead in the investigation. ‘This is Doctor Bruno, our first physician in Venice,’ he explained. ‘I appeal to him to say if there are any unhealthy influences in Mr Westwick’s room.’

  Introduced to Number Fourteen, the doctor looked round him with a certain appearance of interest which was noticed by everyone present. ‘The last time I was in this room,’ he said, ‘was on a melancholy occasion. It was before the palace was changed into an hotel. I was in professional attendance on an English nobleman who died here.’ One of the persons present inquired the name of the nobleman. Doctor Bruno answered (without the slightest suspicion that he was speaking before a brother of the dead man), ‘Lord Montbarry.’

  Henry quietly left the room, without saying a word to anybody.

  He was not, in any sense of the term, a superstitious man. But he felt, nevertheless, an insurmountable reluctance to remaining in the hotel. He decided on leaving Venice. To ask for another room would be, as he could plainly see, an offence in the eyes of the manager. To remove to another hotel, would be to openly abandon an establishment in the success of which he had a pecuniary interest. Leaving a note for Arthur Barville, on his arrival in Venice, in which he merely mentioned that he had gone to look at the Italian lakes, and that a line addressed to his hotel at Milan would bring him back again, he took the afternoon train to Padua – and dined with his usual appetite, and slept as well as ever that night.

  The next day, a gentleman and his wife (perfect strangers to the Montbarry family), returning to England by way of Venice, arrived at the hotel and occupied Number Fourteen.

  Still mindful of the slur that had been cast on one of his best bedchambers, the manager took occasion to ask the travellers the next morning how they liked their room. They left him to judge for himself how well they were satisfied, by remaining a day longer in Venice than they had originally planned to do, solely for the purpose of enjoying the excellent accommodation offered to them by the new hotel. ‘We have met with nothing like it in Italy,’ they said; ‘you may rely on our recommending you to all our friends.’

  On the day when Number Fourteen was again vacant, an English lady travelling alone with her maid arrived at the hotel, saw the room, and at once engaged it.

  The lady was Mrs Norbury. She had left Francis Westwick at Milan, occupied in negotiating for the appearance at his theatre of the new dancer at the Scala. Not having heard to the contrary, Mrs Norbury supposed that Arthur Barville and his wife had already arrived at Venice. She was more interested in meeting the young married couple than in awaiting the result of the hard bargaining which delayed the engagement of the new dancer; and she volunteered to make her brother’s apologies, if his theatrical business caused him to be late in keeping his appointment at the honeymoon festival.

  Mrs Norbury’s experience of Number Fourteen differed entirely from her brother Henry’s experience of the room.

  Falling asleep as readily as usual, her repose was disturbed by a succession of frightful dreams; the central figure in every one of them being the figure of her dead brother, the first Lord Montbarry. She saw him starving in a loathsome prison; she saw him pursued by assassins, and dying under their knives; she saw him drowning in immeasurable depths of dark water; she saw him in a bed on fire, burning to death in the flames; she saw him tempted by a shadowy creature to drink, and dying of the poisonous draught. The reiterated horror of these dreams had such an effect on her that she rose with the dawn of day, afraid to trust herself again in bed. In the old times, she had been noted in the family as the one member of it who lived on affectionate terms with Montbarry. His other sister and his brothers were constantly quarrelling with him. Even his mother owned that her eldest son was of all her children the child whom she least liked. Sensible and resolute woman as she was, Mrs Norbury shuddered with terror as she sat at the window o
f her room, watching the sunrise, and thinking of her dreams.

  She made the first excuse that occurred to her, when her maid came in at the usual hour, and noticed how ill she looked. The woman was of so superstitious a temperament that it would have been in the last degree indiscreet to trust her with the truth. Mrs Norbury merely remarked that she had not found the bed quite to her liking, on account of the large size of it. She was accustomed at home, as her maid knew, to sleep in a small bed. Informed of this objection later in the day, the manager regretted that he could only offer to the lady the choice of one other bedchamber, numbered Thirty-eight, and situated immediately over the bedchamber which she desired to leave. Mrs Norbury accepted the proposed change of quarters. She was now about to pass her second night in the room occupied in the old days of the palace by Baron Rivar.

  Once more, she fell asleep as usual. And, once more, the frightful dreams of the first night terrified her, following each other in the same succession. This time her nerves, already shaken, were not equal to the renewed torture of terror inflicted on them. She threw on her dressing-gown, and rushed out of her room in the middle of the night. The porter, alarmed by the banging of the door, met her hurrying headlong down the stairs, in search of the first human being she could find to keep her company. Considerably surprised at this last new manifestation of the famous ‘English eccentricity,’ the man looked at the hotel register, and led the lady upstairs again to the room occupied by her maid. The maid was not asleep, and, more wonderful still, was not even undressed. She received her mistress quietly. When they were alone, and when Mrs Norbury had, as a matter of necessity, taken her attendant into her confidence, the woman made a very strange reply.

  ‘I have been asking about the hotel, at the servants’ supper to-night,’ she said. ‘The valet of one of the gentlemen staying here has heard that the late Lord Montbarry was the last person who lived in the palace, before it was made into an hotel. The room he died in, ma’am, was the room you slept in last night. Your room to-night is the room just above it. I said nothing for fear of frightening you. For my own part, I have passed the night as you see, keeping my light on, and reading my Bible. In my opinion, no member of your family can hope to be happy or comfortable in this house.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Please to let me explain myself, ma’am. When Mr Henry Westwick was here (I have this from the valet, too) he occupied the room his brother died in (without knowing it), like you. For two nights he never closed his eyes. Without any reason for it (the valet heard him tell the gentlemen in the coffee-room) he could not sleep; he felt so low and so wretched in himself. And what is more, when daytime came, he couldn’t even eat while he was under this roof. You may laugh at me, ma’am – but even a servant may draw her own conclusions. It’s my conclusion that something happened to my lord, which we none of us know about, when he died in this house. His ghost walks in torment until he can tell it – and the living persons related to him are the persons who feel he is near them. Those persons may yet see him in the time to come. Don’t, pray don’t stay any longer in this dreadful place! I wouldn’t stay another night here myself – no, not for anything that could be offered me!’

  Mrs Norbury at once set her servant’s mind at ease on this last point.

  ‘I don’t think about it as you do,’ she said gravely. ‘But I should like to speak to my brother of what has happened. We will go back to Milan.’

  Some hours necessarily elapsed before they could leave the hotel, by the first train in the forenoon.

  In that interval, Mrs Norbury’s maid found an opportunity of confidentially informing the valet of what had passed between her mistress and herself. The valet had other friends to whom he related the circumstances in his turn. In due course of time, the narrative, passing from mouth to mouth, reached the ears of the manager. He instantly saw that the credit of the hotel was in danger, unless something was done to retrieve the character of the room numbered Fourteen. English travellers, well acquainted with the peerage of their native country, informed him that Henry Westwick and Mrs Norbury were by no means the only members of the Montbarry family. Curiosity might bring more of them to the hotel, after hearing what had happened. The manager’s ingenuity easily hit on the obvious means of misleading them, in this case. The numbers of all the rooms were enamelled in blue, on white china plates, screwed to the doors. He ordered a new plate to be prepared, bearing the number, ‘13 A’; and he kept the room empty, after its tenant for the time being had gone away, until the plate was ready. He then re-numbered the room; placing the removed Number Fourteen on the door of his own room (on the second floor), which, not being to let, had not previously been numbered at all. By this device, Number Fourteen disappeared at once and for ever from the books of the hotel, as the number of a bedroom to let.

  Having warned the servants to beware of gossiping with travellers, on the subject of the changed numbers, under penalty of being dismissed, the manager composed his mind with the reflection that he had done his duty to his employers. ‘Now,’ he thought to himself, with an excusable sense of triumph, ‘let the whole family come here if they like! The hotel is a match for them.’

  XVIII

  Before the end of the week, the manager found himself in relations with ‘the family’ once more. A telegram from Milan announced that Mr Francis Westwick would arrive in Venice on the next day; and would be obliged if Number Fourteen, on the first floor, could be reserved for him, in the event of its being vacant at the time.

  The manager paused to consider, before he issued his directions.

  The re-numbered room had been last let to a French gentleman. It would be occupied on the day of Mr Francis Westwick’s arrival, but it would be empty again on the day after. Would it be well to reserve the room for the special occupation of Mr Francis? and when he had passed the night unsuspiciously and comfortably in ‘No. 13 A,’ to ask him in the presence of witnesses how he liked his bedchamber? In this case, if the reputation of the room happened to be called in question again, the answer would vindicate it, on the evidence of a member of the very family which had first given Number Fourteen a bad name. After a little reflection, the manager decided on trying the experiment, and directed that ‘13 A’ should be reserved accordingly.

  On the next day, Francis Westwick arrived in excellent spirits.

  He had signed agreements with the most popular dancer in Italy; he had transferred the charge of Mrs Norbury to his brother Henry, who had joined him in Milan; and he was now at full liberty to amuse himself by testing in every possible way the extraordinary influence exercised over his relatives by the new hotel. When his brother and sister first told him what their experience had been, he instantly declared that he would go to Venice in the interest of his theatre. The circumstances related to him contained invaluable hints for a ghost-drama. The title occurred to him in the railway: ‘The Haunted Hotel.’ Post that in red letters six feet high, on a black ground, all over London – and trust the excitable public to crowd into the theatre!

  Received with the politest attention by the manager, Francis met with a disappointment on entering the hotel. ‘Some mistake, sir. No such room on the first floor as Number Fourteen. The room bearing that number is on the second floor, and has been occupied by me, from the day when the hotel opened. Perhaps you meant number 13 A, on the first floor? It will be at your service tomorrow – a charming room. In the mean time, we will do the best we can for you, to-night.’

  A man who is the successful manager of a theatre is probably the last man in the civilised universe who is capable of being impressed with favourable opinions of his fellow-creatures. Francis privately set the manager down as a humbug, and the story about the numbering of the rooms as a lie.

  On the day of his arrival, he dined by himself in the restaurant, before the hour of the table d’hote, for the express purpose of questioning the waiter, without being overheard by anybody. The answer led him to the conclusion that ‘13 A’ occupied
the situation in the hotel which had been described by his brother and sister as the situation of ‘14.’ He asked next for the Visitors’ List; and found that the French gentleman who then occupied ‘13 A,’ was the proprietor of a theatre in Paris, personally well known to him. Was the gentleman then in the hotel? He had gone out, but would certainly return for the table d’hote. When the public dinner was over, Francis entered the room, and was welcomed by his Parisian colleague, literally, with open arms. ‘Come and have a cigar in my room,’ said the friendly Frenchman. ‘I want to hear whether you have really engaged that woman at Milan or not.’ In this easy way, Francis found his opportunity of comparing the interior of the room with the description which he had heard of it at Milan.

  Arriving at the door, the Frenchman bethought himself of his travelling companion. ‘My scene-painter is here with me,’ he said, ‘on the look-out for materials. An excellent fellow, who will take it as a kindness if we ask him to join us. I’ll tell the porter to send him up when he comes in.’ He handed the key of his room to Francis. ‘I will be back in a minute. It’s at the end of the corridor – 13 A.’

  Francis entered the room alone. There were the decorations on the walls and the ceiling, exactly as they had been described to him! He had just time to perceive this at a glance, before his attention was diverted to himself and his own sensations, by a grotesquely disagreeable occurrence which took him completely by surprise.

  He became conscious of a mysteriously offensive odour in the room, entirely new in his experience of revolting smells. It was composed (if such a thing could be) of two mingling exhalations, which were separately discoverable exhalations nevertheless. This strange blending of odours consisted of something faintly and unpleasantly aromatic, mixed with another underlying smell, so unutterably sickening that he threw open the window, and put his head out into the fresh air, unable to endure the horribly infected atmosphere for a moment longer.