This, obviously, must have been a dream, hallucination only, as I was lying on my back and my eyes were directed towards the bottom of the bed, and the coverlet and blankets and sheet intervened between my eyes and my side. But in fever one sees without eyes, and in every direction, and through all obstructions.
Roused thoroughly by an excruciating twinge, I tried to cry out, and succeeded in throwing myself over on my right side, that which was in pain. At once I felt the thing withdrawn that was awling—if I may use the word—in between my ribs.
And now I saw, standing beside the bed, a figure that had its arm under the bedclothes, and was slowly removing it. The hand was leisurely drawn from under the coverings and rested on the eider-down coverlet, with the forefinger extended.
The figure was that of a man, in shabby clothes, with a sallow, mean face, a retreating forehead, with hair cut after the French fashion, and a moustache, dark. The jaws and chin were covered with a bristly growth, as if shaving had been neglected for a fortnight. The figure did not appear to be thoroughly solid, but to be of the consistency of curd, and the face was of the complexion of curd. As I looked at this object it withdrew, sliding backward in an odd sort of manner, and as though over-weighted by the hand, which was the most substantial, indeed the only substantial portion of it. Though the figure retreated stooping, yet it was no longer huddled along by the finger, as if it had no material existence. If the same, it had acquired a consistency and a solidity which it did not possess before.
How it vanished I do not know, nor whither it went. The door opened, and Square came in.
“What!” he exclaimed with cheery voice; “influenza is it?”
“I don’t know—I think it’s that finger again.”
4
“Now, look here,” said Square, “I’m not going to have that cuss at its pranks any more. Tell me all about it.”
I was now so exhausted, so feeble, that I was not able to give a connected account of what had taken place, but Square put to me just a few pointed questions and elicited the main facts. He pieced them together in his own orderly mind, so as to form a connected whole.
“There is a feature in the case,” said he, “that strikes me as remarkable and important. At first—a finger only, then a hand, then a nebulous figure attached to the hand, without backbone, without consistency. Lastly, a complete form, with consistency and with backbone, but the latter in a gelatinous condition, and the entire figure over-weighted by the hand, just as hand and figure were previously over-weighted by the finger. Simultaneously with this compacting and consolidating of the figure, came your degeneration and loss of vital force and, in a word, of health. What you lose, that object acquires, and what it acquires, it gains by contact with you. That’s clear enough, is it not?”
“I dare say. I don’t know. I can’t think.”
“I suppose not; the faculty of thought is drained out of you. Very well, I must think for you, and I will. Force is force, and see if I can’t deal with your visitant in such a way as will prove just as truly a moral dissuasive as that employed on the union men on strike in—never mind where it was. That’s not to the point.”
“Will you kindly give me some lime-juice?” I entreated.
I sipped the acid draught, but without relief. I listened to Square, but without hope. I wanted to be left alone. I was weary of my pain, weary of everything, even of life. It was a matter of indifference to me whether I recovered or slipped out of existence.
“It will be here again shortly,” said the engineer. “As the French say, l’appetit vient en mangeant. It has been at you thrice, it won’t be content without another peck. And if it does get another, I guess it will pretty well about finish you.”
Mr. Square rubbed his chin, and then put his hands into his trouser pockets. That also was a trick acquired in the States, an inelegant one. His hands, when not actively occupied, went into his pockets, inevitably they gravitated thither. Ladies did not like Square; they said he was not a gentleman. But it was not that he said or did anything “off colour,” only he spoke to them, looked at them, walked with them, always with his hands in his pockets. I have seen a lady turn her back on him deliberately because of this trick.
Standing now with his hands in his pockets, he studied my bed, and said contemptuously: “Old-fashioned and bad, four-poster. Oughtn’t to be allowed, I guess; unwholesome all the way round.”
I was not in a condition to dispute this. I like a four-poster with curtains at head and feet; not that I ever draw them, but it gives a sense of privacy that is wanting in one of your half-tester beds.
If there is a window at one’s feet, one can lie in bed without the glare in one’s eyes, and yet without darkening the room by drawing the blinds. There is much to be said for a four-poster, but this is not the place in which to say it.
Mr. Square pulled his hands out of his pockets and began fiddling with the electric point near the head of my bed, attached a wire, swept it in a semicircle along the floor, and then thrust the knob at the end into my hand in the bed.
“Keep your eye open,” said he, “and your hand shut and covered. If that finger comes again tickling your ribs, try it with the point. I’ll manage the switch, from behind the curtain.”
Then he disappeared.
I was too indifferent in my misery to turn my head and observe where he was. I remained inert, with the knob in my hand, and my eyes closed, suffering and thinking of nothing but the shooting pains through my head and the aches in my loins and back and legs. Some time probably elapsed before I felt the finger again at work at my ribs; it groped, but no longer bored. I now felt the entire hand, not a single finger, and the hand was substantial, cold, and clammy. I was aware, how, I know not, that if the finger-point reached the region of my heart, on the left side, the hand would, so to speak, sit down on it, with the cold palm over it, and that then immediately my heart would cease to beat, and it would be, as Square might express it, “gone coon” with me.
In self-preservation I brought up the knob of the electric wire against the hand—against one of the ringers, I think—and at once was aware of a rapping, squealing noise. I turned my head languidly, and saw the form, now more substantial than before, capering in an ecstasy of pain, endeavouring fruitlessly to withdraw its arm from under the bedclothes, and the hand from the electric point.
At the same moment Square stepped from behind the curtain, with a dry laugh, and said: “I thought we should fix him. He has the coil about him, and can’t escape. Now let us drop to particulars. But I shan’t let you off till I know all about you.”
The last sentence was addressed, not to me, but to the apparition.
Thereupon he bade me take the point away from the hand of the figure—being—whatever it was, but to be ready with it at a moment’s notice. He then proceeded to catechise my visitor, who moved restlessly within the circle of wire, but could not escape from it. It replied in a thin, squealing voice that sounded as if it came from a distance, and had a querulous tone in it. I do not pretend to give all that was said. I cannot recollect everything that passed. My memory was affected by my illness, as well as my body. Yet I prefer giving the scraps that I recollect to what Square told me he had heard.
“Yes—I was unsuccessful, always was. Nothing answered with me. The world was against me. Society was. I hate society. I don’t like work neither, never did. But I like agitating against what is established. I hate the Royal Family, the landed interest, the parsons, everything that is, except the people—that is, the unemployed. I always did. I couldn’t get work as suited me. When I died they buried me in a cheap coffin, dirt cheap, and gave me a nasty grave, cheap, and a service rattled away cheap, and no monument. Didn’t want none. Oh! there are lots of us. All discontented. Discontent! That’s a passion, it is—it gets into the veins, it fills the brain, it occupies the heart; it’s a sort of divine cancer that takes possession of the entire man, and makes him dissatisfied with everything, and hate everybody.
> “But we must have our share of happiness at some time. We all crave for it in one way or other. Some think there’s a future state of blessedness and so have hope, and look to attain to it, for hope is a cable and anchor that attaches to what is real. But when you have no hope of that sort, don’t believe in any future state, you must look for happiness in life here. We didn’t get it when we were alive, so we seek to procure it after we are dead. We can do it, if we can get out of our cheap and nasty coffins. But not till the greater part of us is mouldered away. If a finger or two remains, that can work its way up to the surface, those cheap deal coffins go to pieces quick enough.
“Then the only solid part of us left can pull the rest of us that has gone to nothing after it. Then we grope about after the living. The well-to-do if we can get at them—the honest working poor if we can’t—we hate them too, because they are content and happy. If we reach any of these, and can touch them, then we can draw their vital force out of them into ourselves, and recuperate at their expense. That was about what I was going to do with you. Getting on famous. Nearly solidified into a new man; and given another chance in life. But I’ve missed it this time. Just like my luck. Miss everything. Always have, except misery and disappointment. Get plenty of that.”
“What are you all?” asked Square. “Anarchists out of employ?”
“Some of us go by that name, some by other designations, but we are all one, and own allegiance to but one monarch—Sovereign discontent. We are bred to have a distaste for manual work; and we grow up loafers, grumbling at everything and quarrelling with society that is around us and the Providence that is above us.”
“And what do you call yourselves now?”
“Call ourselves? Nothing; we are the same, in another condition, that is all. Folk called us once Anarchists, Nihilists, Socialists, Levellers, now they call us the Influenza. The learned talk of microbes, and bacilli, and bacteria. Microbes, bacilli, and bacteria be blowed! We are the Influenza; we the social failures, the generally discontented, coming up out of our cheap and nasty graves in the form of physical disease. We are the Influenza.”
“There you are, I guess!” exclaimed Square triumphantly. “Did I not say that all forces were correlated? If so, then all negations, deficiencies of force are one in their several manifestations. Talk of Divine discontent as a force impelling to progress! Rubbish, it is a paralysis of energy. It turns all it absorbs to acid, to envy, spite, gall. It inspires nothing, but rots the whole moral system. Here you have it—moral, social, political discontent in another form, nay aspect—that is all. What Anarchism is in the body Politic, that Influenza is in the body Physical. Do you see that?”
“Ye-e-s-e-s,” I believe I answered, and dropped away into the land of dreams.
I recovered. What Square did with the Thing I know not, but believe that he reduced it again to its former negative and self-decomposing condition.
The Leaden Ring
(A tale from A Book of Ghosts)
“It is not possible, Julia. I cannot conceive how the idea of attending the county ball can have entered your head after what has happened. Poor young Hattersley’s dreadful death suffices to stop that.”
“But, aunt, Mr. Hattersley is no relation of ours.”
“No relation—but you know that the poor fellow would not have shot himself if it had not been for you.”
“Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, how can you say so, when the verdict was that he committed suicide when in an unsound condition of mind? How could I help his blowing out his brains, when those brains were deranged?”
“Julia, do not talk like this. If he did go off his head, it was you who upset him by first drawing him on, leading him to believe that you liked him, and then throwing him over so soon as the Hon. James Lawlor appeared on the tapis. Consider: what will people say if you go to the assembly?”
“What will they say if I do not go? They will immediately set it down to my caring deeply for James Hattersley, and they will think that there was some sort of engagement.”
“They are not likely to suppose that. But really, Julia, you were for a while all smiles and encouragement. Tell me, now, did Mr. Hattersley propose to you?”
“Well—yes, he did, and I refused him.”
“And then he went and shot himself in despair. Julia, you cannot with any face go to the ball.” “Nobody knows that he proposed. And precisely because I do go everyone will conclude that he did not propose. I do not wish it to be supposed that he did.”
“His family, of course, must have been aware. They will see your name among those present at the assembly.”
“Aunt, they are in too great trouble to look at the paper to see who were at the dance.”
“His terrible death lies at your door. How you can have the heart, Julia——”
“I don’t see it. Of course, I feel it. I am awfully sorry, and awfully sorry for his father, the admiral. I cannot set him up again. I wish that when I rejected him he had gone and done as did Joe Pomeroy, marry one of his landlady’s daughters.”
“There, Julia, is another of your delinquencies. You lured on young Pomeroy till he proposed, then you refused him, and in a fit of vexation and mortified vanity he married a girl greatly beneath him in social position. If the ménage prove a failure you will have it on your conscience that you have wrecked his life and perhaps hers as well.”
“I cannot throw myself away as a charity to save this man or that from doing a foolish thing.”
“What I complain of, Julia, is that you encouraged young Mr. Pomeroy till Mr. Hattersley appeared, whom you thought more eligible, and then you tossed him aside; and you did precisely the same with James Hattersley as soon as you came to know Mr. Lawlor. After all, Julia, I am not so sure that Mr. Pomeroy has not chosen the better part. The girl, I dare say, is simple, fresh, and affectionate.”
“Your implication is not complimentary, Aunt Elizabeth.”
“My dear, I have no patience with the young lady of the present day, who is shallow, self-willed, and indifferent to the feelings and happiness of others, who craves for excitement and pleasure, and desires nothing that is useful and good. Where now will you see a girl like Viola’s sister, who let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, feed on her damask cheek? Nowadays a girl lays herself at the feet of a man if she likes him, turns herself inside-out to let him and all the world read her heart.”
“I have no relish to be like Viola’s sister, and have my story—a blank. I never grovelled at the feet of Joe Pomeroy or James Hattersley.”
“No, but you led each to consider himself the favoured one till he proposed, and then you refused him. It was like smiling at a man and then stabbing him to the heart.”
“Well—I don’t want people to think that James Hattersley cared for me—I certainly never cared for him—nor that he proposed; so I shall go to the ball.”
Julia Demant was an orphan. She had been retained at school till she was eighteen, and then had been removed just at the age when a girl begins to take an interest in her studies, and not to regard them as drudgery. On her removal she had cast away all that she had acquired, and had been plunged into the whirl of Society. Then suddenly her father died—she had lost her mother some years before—and she went to live with her aunt, Miss Flemming. Julia had inherited a sum of about five hundred pounds a year, and would probably come in for a good estate and funds as well on the death of her aunt. She had been flattered as a girl at home, and at school as a beauty, and she certainly thought no small bones of herself.
Miss Flemming was an elderly lady with a sharp tongue, very outspoken, and very decided in her opinions; but her action was weak, and Julia soon discovered that she could bend the aunt to do anything she willed, though she could not modify or alter her opinions.
In the matter of Joe Pomeroy and James Hattersley, it was as Miss Flemming had said. Julia had encouraged Mr. Pomeroy, and had only cast him off because she thought better of the suit of Mr. Hattersley, son of an admiral of that na
me. She had seen a good deal of young Hattersley, had given him every encouragement, had so entangled him, that he was madly in love with her; and then, when she came to know the Hon. James Lawlor, and saw that he was fascinated, she rejected Hattersley with the consequences alluded to in the conversation above given. Julia was particularly anxious to be present at the county ball, for she had been already booked by Mr. Lawlor for several dances, and she was quite resolved to make an attempt to bring him to a declaration.
On the evening of the ball Miss Flemming and Julia entered the carriage. The aunt had given way, as was her wont, but under protest.
For about ten minutes neither spoke, and then Miss Flemming said, “Well, you know my feelings about this dance. I do not approve. I distinctly disapprove. I do not consider your going to the ball in good taste, or, as you would put it, in good form. Poor young Hattersley——”
“Oh, dear aunt, do let us put young Hattersley aside. He was buried with the regular forms, I suppose?”
“Yes, Julia.”
“Then the rector accepted the verdict of the jury at the inquest. Why should not we? A man who is unsound in his mind is not responsible for his actions.”
“I suppose not.”
“Much less, then, I who live ten miles away.”
“I do not say that you are responsible for his death, but for the condition of mind that led him to do the dreadful deed. Really, Julia, you are one of those into whose head or heart only by a surgical operation could the thought be introduced that you could be in the wrong. A hypodermic syringe would be too weak an instrument to effect such a radical change in you. Everyone else may be in the wrong, you—never. As for me, I cannot get young Hattersley out of my head.”
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Sabine Baring-Gould Page 16