The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories

by Michael Cox

  'But you allowed—almost, at least, uncle,' said Kate, 'that you could find a place in your theories even for those shapeless creatures.'

  Cornelius sat silent for a moment; then, having first doubled the length of his face, and restored it to its natural condition, said thoughtfully, 'I suspect, Katey, if you were to come upon an ichthyosaurus or a pterodactyl asleep in the shrubbery, you would hardly expect your report of it to be believed all at once either by Harry or Janet.'

  'I suppose not, uncle. But I can't see what-'

  'Of course such a thing could not happen here and now. But there was a time when and a place where such a thing may have happened. Indeed, in my time, a traveller or two have got pretty soundly disbelieved for reporting what they saw—the last of an expiring race, which had strayed over the natural verge of its history, coming to life in some neglected swamp, itself a remnant of the slime of Chaos.'

  'I never heard you talk like that before, uncle,' said Harry. 'If you go on like that, you'll land me in a swamp, I'm afraid.'

  'I wasn't talking to you at all, Harry. Kate challenged me to find a place for kelpies, and such like, in the theories she does me the honour of supposing I cultivate.'

  'Then you think, uncle, that all these stories are only legends which, if you could follow them up, would lead you back to some one of the awful monsters that have since quite disappeared from the earth.'

  'It is possible those stories may be such legends; but that was not what I intended to lead you to. I gave you that only as something like what I am going to say now. What if, mind, I only suggest it, what if the direful creatures, whose report lingers in these tales, should have an origin far older still? What if they were the remnants of a vanishing period of the earth's history long antecedent to the birth of mastodon and iguanodon; a stage, namely, when the world, as we call it, had not yet become quite visible, was not yet so far finished as to part from the invisible world that was its mother, and which, on its part, had not then become quite invisible—was only almost such; and when, as a credible consequence, strange shapes of those now invisible regions, Gorgons and Chimaeras dire, might be expected to gloom out occasionally from the awful Fauna of an ever-generating world upon that one which was being born of it. Hence, the life-periods of a world being long and slow, some of these huge, unformed bulks of half-created matter might, somehow, like the megatherium of later times, a baby creation to them, roll at age-long intervals, clothed in a mighty terror of shapelessness into the half-recognition of human beings, whose consternation at the uncertain vision were barrier enough to prevent all further knowledge of its substance.'

  'I begin to have some notion of your meaning, uncle,' said Kate.

  'But then,' said Janet, 'all that must be over by this time. That world has been invisible now for many years.'

  'Ever since you were born, I suppose, Janet. The changes of a world are not to be measured by the changes of its generations.'

  'Oh, but, uncle, there can't be any such things. You know that as well as I do.'

  'Yes, just as well, and no better.'

  'There can't be any ghosts now. Nobody believes such things.'

  'Oh, as to ghosts, that is quite another thing. I did not know you were talking with reference to them. It is no wonder if one can get nothing sensible out of you, Janet, when your discrimination is no greater than to lump everything marvellous, kelpies, ghosts, vampires, doubles, witches, fairies, nightmares, and I don't know what all, under the one head of ghosts; and we haven't been saying a word about them. If one were to disprove to you the existence of the afreets of Eastern tales, you would consider the whole argument concerning the reappearance of the departed upset. I congratulate you on your powers of analysis and induction, Miss Janet. But it matters very little whether we believe in ghosts, as you say, or not, provided we believe that we are ghosts—that within this body, which so many people are ready to consider their own very selves, their lies a ghostly embryo, at least, which has an inner side to it God only can see, which says I concerning itself, and which will soon have to know whether or not it can appear to those whom it has left behind, and thus solve the question of ghosts for itself, at least.'

  'Then you do believe in ghosts, uncle?' said Janet, in a tone that certainly was not respectful.

  'Surely I said nothing of the sort, Janet. The man most convinced that he had himself had such an interview as you hint at, would find—ought to find it impossible to convince any one else of it.'

  'You are quite out of my depth, uncle,' said Harry. 'Surely any honest man ought to be believed?'

  'Honesty is not all, by any means, that is necessary to being believed. It is impossible to convey a conviction of anything. All you can do is to convey a conviction that you are convinced. Of course, what satisfied you might satisfy another; but, till you can present him with the sources of your conviction, you cannot present him with the conviction—and perhaps not even then.'

  'You can tell him all about it, can't you?'

  'Is telling a man about a ghost, affording him the source of your conviction? Is it the same as a ghost appearing to him? Really, Harry!—You cannot even convey the impression a dream has made upon you.'

  'But isn't that just because it is only a dream?'

  'Not at all. The impression may be deeper and clearer on your mind than any fact of the next morning will make. You will forget the next day altogether, but the impression of the dream will remain through all the following whirl and storm of what you call facts. Now a conviction may be likened to a deep impression on the judgement or the reason, or both. No one can feel it but the person who is convinced. It cannot be conveyed.'

  'I fancy that is just what those who believe in spirit-rapping would-say.'

  'There are the true and false of convictions, as of everything else. I mean that a man may take that for a conviction in his own mind which is not a conviction, but only resembles one. But those to whom you refer profess to appeal to facts. It is on the ground of those facts, and with the more earnestness the more reason they can give for receiving them as facts, that I refuse all their deductions with abhorrence. I mean that, if what they say is true, the thinker must reject with contempt the claim to anything like revelation therein.'

  'Then you do not believe in ghosts, after all?' said Kate, in a tone of surprise.

  'I did not say so, my dear. Will you be reasonable, or will you not?'

  'Dear uncle, do tell us what you really think.'

  'I have been telling you what I think ever since I came, Katey; and you won't take in a word I say.'

  'I have been taking in every word, uncle, and trying hard to understand it as well. Did you ever see a ghost, uncle?'

  Cornelius Heywood was silent. He shut his lips and opened his jaws till his cheeks almost met in the vacuum. A strange expression crossed the strange countenance, and the great eyes of his spectacles looked as if, at the very moment, they were seeing something no other spectacles could see. Then his jaws closed with a snap, his countenance brightened, a flash of humour came through the goggle eyes of pebble, and, at length, he actually smiled as he said—'Really, Katey, you must take me for a simpleton!' 'How, uncle?'

  'To think, if I had ever seen a ghost, I would confess the fact before a set of creatures like you—all spinning your webs like so many spiders to catch and devour old Daddy Longlegs.'

  By this time Harry had grown quite grave. 'Indeed, I am very sorry, uncle,' he said, 'if I have deserved such a rebuke.'

  'No, no, my boy,' said Cornelius; 'I did not mean it more than half.

  If I had meant it, I would not have said it. If you really would like-'

  Here he paused.

  'Indeed we should, uncle,' said Kate, earnestly. 'You should have heard what we were saying just before you came in.' 'All you were saying, Katey?'

  'Yes,' answered Kate, thoughtfully. 'The worst we said was that you could not tell a story without-well, we did say tacking a moral to it.'

  'Well, well! I mus
tn't push it. A man has no right to know what people say about him. It unfits him for occupying his real position amongst them. He, least of all, has anything to do with it. If his friends won't defend him, he can't defend himself. Besides, what people say is so often untrue!—I don't mean to others, but to themselves. Their hearts are more honest than their mouths. But Janet doesn't want a strange story, I am sure.'

  Janet certainly was not one to have chosen for a listener to such a tale. Her eyes were so small that no satisfaction could possibly come of it. 'Oh! I don't mind, uncle,' she said, with half-affected indifference, as she searched in her box for silk to mend her gloves.

  'You are not very encouraging, I must say,' returned her uncle, making another cow-face.

  'I will go away, if you like,' said Janet, pretending to rise.

  'No, never mind,' said her uncle hastily. 'If you don't want me to tell it, I want you to hear it; and, before I have done, that may have come to the same thing perhaps.'

  'Then you really are going to tell us a ghost story!' said Kate, drawing her chair nearer to her uncle's; and then, finding this did not satisfy her sense of propinquity to the source of the expected pleasure, drawing a stool from the corner, and seating herself almost on the hearth-rug at his knee.

  'I did not say so,' returned Cornelius, once more. 'I said I would tell you a strange story. You may call it a ghost story if you like; I do not pretend to determine what it is. I confess it will look like one, though.'

  After so many delays, Uncle Cornelius now plunged almost hurriedly into his narration.

  'In the year 1820,' he said, 'in the month of August, I fell in love.' Here the girls glanced at each other. The idea of Uncle Cornie in love, and in the very same century in which they were now listening to the confession, was too astonishing to pass without ocular remark; but, if he observed it, he took no notice of it; he did not even pause. 'In the month of September, I was refused. Consequently, in the month of October, I was ready to fall in love again. Take particular care of yourself, Harry, for a whole month, at least, after your first disappointment; for you will never be more likely to do a foolish thing. Please yourself after the second. If you are silly then, you may take what you get, for you will deserve it—except it be good fortune.'

  'Did you do a foolish thing then, uncle?' asked Harry, demurely.

  'I did, as you will see; for I fell in love again.'

  'I don't see anything so very foolish in that.'

  'I have repented it since, though. Don't interrupt me again, please. In the middle of October, then, in the year 1820, in the evening, I was walking across Russell Square, on my way home from the British Museum, where I had been reading all day. You see I have a full intention of being precise, Janet.'

  'I'm sure I don't know why you make the remark to me, uncle,' said Janet, with an involuntary toss of her head. Her uncle only went on with his narrative.

  'I begin at the very beginning of my story,' he said; 'for I want to be particular as to everything that can appear to have had anything to do with what came afterwards. I had been reading, I say, all the morning in the British Museum; and, as I walked, I took off my spectacles to ease my eyes. I need not tell you that I am short-sighted now, for that you know well enough. But I must tell you that I was short-sighted then, and helpless enough without my spectacles, although I was not quite so much so as I am now—for I find it all nonsense about shortsighted eyes improving with age. Well, I was walking along the south side of Russell Square, with my spectacles in my hand, and feeling a little bewildered in consequence—for it was quite the dusk of the evening, and short-sighted people require more light than others. I was feeling, in fact, almost blind. I had got more than half-way to the other side, when, from the crossing that cuts off the corner in the direction of Montagu Place, just as I was about to turn towards it, an old lady stepped upon the kerbstone of the pavement, looked at me for a moment, and passed—an occurrence not very remarkable, certainly. But the lady was remarkable and so was her dress. I am not good at observing, and I am still worse at describing dress, therefore I can only say that hers reminded me of an old picture—that is, I had never seen anything like it, except in old pictures. She had no bonnet, and looked as if she had walked straight out of an ancient drawing-room in her evening attire. Of her face I shall say nothing now. The next instant I met a man on the crossing, who stopped and addressed me. So shortsighted was I that, although I recognized his voice as one I ought to know, I could not identify him until I had put on my spectacles, which I did instinctively in the act of returning his greeting. At the same moment I glanced over my shoulder after the old lady. She was nowhere to be seen.

  ' "What are you looking at?" asked James Hetheridge.

  ' "I was looking after that old lady," I answered, "but I can't see her."

  ' "What old lady?" said Hetheridge, with just a touch of impatience. ' "You must have seen her," I returned. "You were not more than three yards behind her." ' "Where is she then?"

  '"She must have gone down one of the areas, I think. But she looked a lady, though an old-fashioned one."

  '"Have you been dining?" asked James, in a tone of doubtful enquiry.

  ' "No," I replied, not suspecting the insinuation; "I have only just come from the Museum."

  ' "Then I advise you to call on your medical man before you go home."

  ' "Medical man!" returned; "I have no medical man. What do you mean? I never was better in my life."

  ' "I mean that there was no old lady. It was an illusion, and that indicates something wrong. Besides, you did not know me when I spoke to you."

  ' "That is nothing," I returned. "I had just taken off my spectacles, and without them I shouldn't know my own father." ' "How was it you saw the old lady, then?"

  'The affair was growing serious under my friend's cross-questioning. I did not at all like the idea of his supposing me subject to hallucinations. So I answered, with a laugh, "Ah! to be sure, that explains it. I am so blind without my spectacles, that I shouldn't know an old lady from a big dog."

  ' "There was no big dog," said Hetheridge, shaking his head, as the fact for the first time dawned upon me that, although I had seen the old lady clearly enough to make a sketch of her; even to the features of her care-worn, eager old face, I had not been able to recognize the well-known countenance of James Hetheridge.

  ' "That's what comes of reading till the optic nerve is weakened," he went on. "You will cause yourself serious injury if you do not pull up in time. I'll tell you what; I'm going home next week—will you go with me?"

  ' "You are very kind," I answered, not altogether rejecting the proposal, for I felt that a little change to the country would be pleasant, and I was quite my own master. For I had unfortunately means equal to my wants, and had no occasion to follow any profession—not a very desirable thing for a young man, I can tell you, Master Harry. I need not keep you over the commonplaces of pressing and yielding. It is enough to say that he pressed and that I yielded. The day was fixed for our departure together; but something or other, I forget what, occurred, to make him advance the date, and it was resolved that I should follow later in the month.

  'It was a drizzly afternoon in the beginning of the last week of October when I left the town of Bradford in a post-chaise to drive to Lewton Grange, the property of my friend's father. I had hardly left the town, and the twilight had only begun to deepen, when, glancing from one of the windows of the chaise, I fancied I saw, between me and the hedge, the dim figure of a horse keeping pace with us. I thought, in the first interval of unreason, that it was a shadow from my own horse, but reminded myself the next moment that there could be no shadow where there was no light. When I looked again, I was at the first glance convinced that my eyes had deceived me. At the second, I believed once more that a shadowy something, with the movements of a horse in harness, was keeping pace with us. I turned away again with some discomfort, and not till we had reached an open moorland road, whence a little watery light was visibl
e on the horizon, could I summon up courage enough to look out once more. Certainly then there was nothing to be seen, and I persuaded myself that it had been all a fancy, and lighted a cigar. With my feet on the cushions before me, I had soon lifted myself on the clouds of tobacco far above all the terrors of the night, and believed them banished for ever. But, my cigar coming to an end just as we turned into the avenue that led up to the Grange, I found myself once more glancing nervously out of the window. The moment the trees were about me, there was, if not a shadowy horse out there by the side of the chaise, yet certainly more than half that conviction in here in my consciousness. When I saw my friend, however, standing on the doorstep, dark against the glow of the hall fire, I forgot all about it; and I need not add that I did not make it a subject of conversation when I entered, for I was well aware that it was essential to a man's reputation that his senses should be accurate, though his heart might without prejudice swarm with shadows, and his judgement be a very stable of hobbies.