Joseph, a story by Catherine Rickford. They were sitting round the fire after
dinner. Not an ordinary fire, one of those fires that has a little
room all to itself, with seats at each side of it to hold a
couple of people or three. The big dining room was paneled with oak.
At the far end was a handsome dresser that dated back for generations. One's
imagination ran riot when one pictured the people who must have laid those pewter plates
on the long, narrow, solid table. Massive medieval chests stood against the
walls. Arms and parts of armor hung against the paneling. But one noticed
few of these things, for there was no light in the rooms save what
the fire gave. It was Christmas Eve. Games had been played, the
old had vied with the young, snatching raisins from the burning snapdragon. The
children had long since gone to bed. It was time their elders followed them.
But they lingered round the fire, taking turns at telling stories. Nothing
very weird had been told. No one had felt any wish to peep over
his shoulder or try to penetrate the darkness of the far end of the room.
The omission caused a sensation of something wanting from each one there this thought
went out, and so a sudden silence fell upon the party. It was
a girl who broke it, a mere child. She wore her hair up
that night for the first time, and that seemed to give her the right
to sit up. So late, mister Grady is going to tell one,
she said. All eyes were turned to a middle aged man in a deep
arm chair, placed straight in front of the fire. He was short,
inclined to be fat, with a bald head and a pointed beard, like
the beards that sailors wear. It was plain that he was deeply conscious of
the sudden turning of so much strained yet forceful thought upon himself. He was
restless in his chair, as people are in a room that is overheated.
He blinked his eyes as he looked round the company. His lips twitched in
a nervous manner. One side of him seemed to be endeavoring to restrain another
side of him from a feverish desire to speak. It was this room that
made me think of him, he said thoughtfully. There was a long silence,
but it occurred to no one to prompt him. Every one seemed to
understand that he was going to speak, or rather that something inside him was
going to speak, some force that craved expression and was using him as a
medium. The little old man's pink face grew strangely calm. The animation that
usually lit it was gone. One would have said that the girl who had
started him already regretted the impulse and now wanted to stop him. She was
breathing heavily, and once or twice made as though she would speak to him,
but no words came. She must have abandoned the idea, for she
fell to studying the company. She examined them carefully, one by one.
This one, she told herself, is so and so, and that one
there just another so and so. She stared at them, knowing that she
could not turn them to herself with her stare. They were just bodies,
kept working, so to speak, by some subtle sort of sentry left behind
by the real selves that streamed out in pent up. Thought to the little
old man in the chair in front of the fire. His name was Joseph,
at least they called him Joseph. He dreamed, you understand dreams.
He was an extraordinary lad in many ways. His mother I knew her very
Well had three children in quick succession soon after marriage. Then ten years went
by, and Joseph was born, quiet and reserved. He always was contained
child whose only friend was his mother. People said things about him, you
know how people talk. Some said he was not Clara's child at all,
but that she had adopted him. Others that her husband was not his father,
and these put her change of manner down to a perpetual struggle to keep
her husband comfortably in the dark. I always imagined that the boy was in
some way aware of all this gossip, for I noticed that he took a
dislike to the people who spread it most. The little man rested his elbows
on the arms of his chair and let the tips of his fingers meet in
front of him. A smile played about his mouth. He seemed to be
searching among his reminiscences for the one that would give the clearest portrait of Joseph
Well. Anyway, he said at last, the boy was odd. There
is no gainsaying the fact. I suppose he was eleven when Clara came down
here with her family for Christmas. The Conningtons owned the place then, Missus
Connington was Clara's sister. It was Christmas Eve, as it is now many
years ago, we had spent a normal Christmas Eve, a little happier perhaps
than usual, by reason of the family reunion, and because of the presence
of so many children. We had eaten and drank, laughed and played,
and gone to bed. I woke in the middle of the night from sheer
restlessness. Clara, knowing my weakness, had given me a fire in my
room. I lit a cigarette, played with the book, and then,
purely from curiosity, opened the door and looked down the passage. From my
door, I could see the head of the staircase in the distance. The
opposite wing of the house, or the passage rather beyond the stairs, was
in darkness. The reason I saw the staircase at all was that the window
you passed coming downstairs allowed the moon to throw an uncertain light upon it,
a weird light because of the stained glass. I was arrested by the curious
effect of this patch of light in so much darkness. When suddenly some one
came into it, turned and went downstairs. It was just like a scene
in a theater. Something was about to happen that I was going to miss.
I ran, as I was barefooted to the head of the stairs and
looked over the banister. I was excited, strung up, too strung up
to feel the fright that I knew must be with me. I remember this
sensation perfectly. I knew that I was afraid, Yet I did not feel
fright. On the stairs, nothing moved. The little hall down here was
lost in darkness. Looking over the banister, I was facing the stained glass
window. You know how the stairs run around three sides of the hall.
Well, it occurred to me that if I went half way down and stood
under the window, I should be able to keep the top of the stairs
in sight and see anything that might happen in the hall. I crept down
very cautiously and waited under the window. First of all, I saw the
suit of empty armor just outside the door here. You know how a thing
like that, if you stare at it in a poor light, appears to
move. Well. It moved sure enough, and the illusion was enhanced by
clouds being blown across the moon by the fire. Like this, one can
talk of these things rationally, but in the dead of night it is a
different matter. So I went down a few steps to make sure of that
armor, when suddenly something passed me on the stairs. I did not hear
it, I did not see it. I sensed it in no way.
I just knew that something had passed me on its way upstairs. I realized
that my retreat was cut off, and with the knowledge, fear came upon
me. I had seen someone come down the stairs that at any rate was
definite. Now I wanted to see him again. Any ghost is bad enough,
but a ghost that one can see is better than one that one can
I managed to get past the suit of armor, but then I had to
feel my way to these double doors. Here he indicated the direction of the
doors by a curious wave of his hand. He did not look toward them,
nor did any of the party. Both men and women were completely absorbed
in his story. They seemed to be mesmerized by the earnestness of his manner.
Only the girl was restless. She gave an impression of impatience with the
slowness with which he came to his point. One would have said that she
was apart from her fellows, an alien among strangers. So dense was the
darkness that I made sure of finding the first door closed. But it was
not. It was wide open, and standing between them, I could feel
that the other was open too. I was literally standing in the wall of
the house, and as I peered into the room, trying to make out
some familiar object, thoughts ran through my mind of people who had been bricked
up in walls and left there to die. For a moment, I caught
the spirit of the inside of a thick wall. Then suddenly I felt the
sensation I've often read about but never experienced before. I knew there was some
one in the room. You are surprised, yes, But wait, I
knew more. I knew that some one was conscious of my presence. It
occurred to me that whoever it was, might want to get out of the
door. I made room for him to pass. I waited for him,
made sure of him, began to feel giddy, and then a man's voice,
deep and clear. There is some one there. Who is it?
I answered mechanically, George Grady. I'm Joseph. A match was drawn across
a match box, and I saw the boy bending over a candle, waiting
for the wick to catch. For a moment I thought he must be walking
in his sleep. But he turned to me quite naturally and said in his
own boyish voice, lost anything. I was amazed at the lad's complete calm.
I wanted to share my fright with someone. Instead, I had to
hide it from this boy. I was conscious of a curious sense of shame.
I had watched him grow, taught him, praised him, scolded him,
and yet here he was waiting for an explanation of my presence in the
dining room at that odd hour of the night. Soon he repeated the question,
lost anything, No, I said, and then I stammered, have
you no? He said, with a little laugh, it's that room.
I can't sleep in it. Oh, I said, what's the matter with
the room? It's the room I was killed in, he said, quite
simply. Of course I had heard about his dreams, but I had had
no direct experience of them. When therefore he said that he had been killed
in his room, I took it for aunted that he had been dreaming again.
I was at a loss to know quite how to tackle him, whether
to treat the whole thing as absurd and laugh it off as such, or
whether to humor him and hear his story. I got him upstairs to mine
room, sat him in a big arm chair, and poked the fire into
a blaze. You've been dreaming again, I said, bluntly, Oh no,
I haven't. Don't you run away with that idea. His whole manner
was so grown up that it was quite unthinkable to treat him as the child
he really was. In fact, it was a little uncanny, this man
in a child's frame. I was killed there, he said again. How
do you mean killed? I asked him, why? Killed? Murdered?
Course, it was years and years ago. I can't say when. Still
I remember the room. I suppose it was the room that reminded me of
the incident. Incident, I exclaimed, what else? Being killed is only
an incident in the existence of any one. One makes a fuss about it
at the time, of course, but really, when you come to think
of it, tell me about it, I said, lighting a cigarette.
He lit one too, that child, and began. You know, my
room is the only modern one in this old house. Nobody knows why it
is modern. The reason is obvious, of course, it was made modern
after I was killed there. The funny thing is that I should have been
put there. I suppose it was done for a purpose. Because I I
He looked at me so fixedly, I knew he would catch me if I
lied what I asked, dream, Yes, I said, that is why
you were put there. I thought so. And yet of all the rooms,
but then, of course no one knew anyhow. I did not recognize
the room until after I was in bed. I had been asleep some time,
and then I woke. Suddenly there was an old wheelback chair in there,
the only old thing in the room. It is standing facing the fire,
as it must have stood the night I was killed. The fire was
burning brightly. The pattern of the back of the chair was thrown into shadow
across the ceiling. Now, the night I was murdered, the conditions were
exactly the same. So directly I saw that pattern on the ceiling, I
remembered the whole thing. I was not dreaming, don't think it. I
was not. What happened that night was this. I was lying in bed,
counting the parts of the back of that chair in shadow on the ceiling.
I probably could not get to sleep, you know, the sort of
thing count up to a thousand and remember in the morning where you got to
Well. I was counting those pieces when suddenly they were all obliterated. The
whole back became a shadow. Someone was sitting in the chair. Now,
surely you understand that directly I saw the shadow of that chair on the ceiling
tonight. I realized that I had not a moment to lose. At any
moment, that same person might come back to that same chair, and escape
would be impossible. I slipped from my bed as quickly as I could and
ran downstairs. But were you not afraid? I asked downstairs that she might
follow me? It was a woman? You know, No, I don't
think I was. She does not belong downstairs anyhow, She didn't No,
I said, no, My voice must have been out of control, for
he caught me up at once. You don't mean to say you saw her,
he said, vehemently. Oh no, you felt her. She passed
me as I came downstairs. I said, what can I have done to
her that she follows me? So he buried his face in his hands,
as though searching for an answer to his thought. Suddenly he looked up and
stared at me. Where had I got to? Oh, yes, the
murder. I can remember how startled I was to see that shadow in the
chair. Startled, you know, but not really frightened. I leaned up
in bed and looked at the chair, and sure enough a woman was sitting
in it, a young woman. I watched her with profound interest until she
began to turn in her chair as I felt to look at me. When
she did that, I shrank back in bed. I dared not meet her
eyes. She might not have had eyes, she might not have had a
face. You know, the sort of pictures that one sees when one glances
back at all one's soul has ever thought. I got back in the bed
as far as I could, and peeped over the sheets at the shadow on
the ceiling. I was tired, frightened to death. I grew weary of
watching. I must have fallen asleep, for suddenly the fire was almost out,
the pattern of the chair barely discernible. The shadow had gone. I
raised myself with a sense of huge relief. Yes, the chair was empty,
but just think of it. The woman was on the floor, on
her hands and knees, crawling toward the bed. I fell back, stricken
with terror. Very soon I felt a gentle pull at the counterpane. I
thought I was in a nightmare, but too lazy or too uncomfortable to try
to wake myself from it. I waited in an agony of suspense, but
nothing seemed to be happening. In fact, I had just persuaded myself that
the movement of the counterpane was fancy. When a hand brushed softly over my
knee, there was no mistaking it. I could feel the long, thin
fingers. Now was the time to do something. I tried to rouse myself,
but all my efforts were futile. I was stiff from head to foot.
Although the hand was lost to me outwardly, it now came within my
range of knowledge, if you know what I mean. I knew that it
was groping its way along the bed, feeling for some other part of me.
At any moment, I could have said exactly where it had got to.
When it was hovering just over my chest, another hand knocked lightly against
my shoulder, I fancied it lost and wandering in search of its fellow.
I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling when the hands met.
The weight of their presence brought a feeling of oppression to my chest.
I seemed to be completely cut off from my body. I had no sort
of connection with any part of it. Nothing about me would respond to my
will to make it move. There was no sound at all anywhere. I
fell into a state of indifference, a sort of patient indifference that can wait
for an appointed time to come. How long I waited I cannot say.
But when the time came, it found me ready. I was not taken
by surprise. There was a great upward rush of pent up force released.
It was like a mighty mass of men who have been lost in prayer rising
to their feet. I can't remember clearly, but I think the woman must
have got on to my bed. I could not follow her distinctly. My
whole attention was concentrated on her hands at the time I felt those fingers itching
for my throat. At last, they moved slowly at first, then quicker,
and then a long, drawn swish, like the sound of an over
bold wave that has broken too far up the beach and is sweeping back to
join the sea. The boy was silent for a moment. Then he stretched
out his hand for the cigarettes. You remember nothing else, I asked him,
No, he said. The next thing I remember clearly is deliberately breaking
the nursery window because it was raining and mother would not let me go out.
There was a moment's tension, then the strain of listening past, and
everyone seemed to be speaking at once. The rector was taking the story seriously.
Tell me, grady, he said, how long do you suppose elapsed
between the boy's murder and his breaking the nursery window. But a young married
woman, in the first flush of her happiness, broke in between them.
She ridiculed the whole idea. Of course, the boy was dreaming. She
was drawing the majority to her way of thinking. When from the corner where
the girl sat a hollow sounding voice and the boy where is he? The
tone of the girl's voice inspired horror, that fear that does not know what
it is. It fears. One could see it on every face, on
every face, that is, except the face of the bald headed man.
There was no horror on his face. He was smiling serenely as he looked
the girl straight in the eyes. He's a man now, he said,
alife. She cried, Why not, said the little old man, rubbing
his hands together. She tried to rise, but her frock had got caught
between the chairs and pulled her to her seat again. The man next her
put out his hand to steady her, but she dashed it away. Roughly.
She looked round the party for an instant, for all the world,
like an animal at bay. Then she sprang to her feet and charged blindly.
They crowded round her to prevent her falling. At the touch of their
hands, she stopped. She was out of breath, as though she had
been running. All right, she said, pushing their hands from her.
All right, I'll come quietly. I did it. They caught her as
she fell, and laid her on the sofa, watching the color fade from
her face. The hostess, an old woman with white hair and a kind
face, approached the little old man. For once in her life. She
was roused to anger. I can't think how you could be so stupid,
she said, See what you have done. I did it for a purpose.
He said, for a purpose. I have always thought that girl was
the culprit. I have to thank you for the opportunity you have given me
of making sure end of Joseph, a story