Speaker 1: Uncle Cornelius his story. It was a dull evening in November.
A drizzling mist had been falling all day about the
old farm. Harry Haywood and his two sisters sat in
the house place expecting a visit from their uncle, Cornelius Haywood.
This uncle lived alone, occupying the first floor above a
chemist's shop in the town, and had just enough of
money over to buy books that nobody seemed ever to
have heard of but himself, for he was a student
in all those regions of speculation in which anything to
be called knowledge is impossible. What a dreary night, said Kate.
I wish uncle would come and tell us a story.
A cheerful wish, said Harry. Uncle Corney is a lively companion,
isn't he. You can't even blunder through a Joe Miller
without tacking a moral to it, and then trying to
persuade you that the joke of it depends on the moral.
Here he comes, said Kate, as three distinct blows the
knob of his walking stick announced the arrival of Uncle Cornelius.
She ran to the door to open it. The air
had been very still all day, but as he entered
he seemed to have brought the wind with him, for
the first moan of it pressed against raather than shook
the casement of the low sealed room. Uncle Cornelius was
very tall, and very thin, and very pale, with large
gray eyes that looked greatly larger because he wore spectacles
of the most delicate hair steel, with the largest pebble
eyes that ever were seen. He gave them a kindly greeting,
but too much in earnest, even in shaking hands to
smile over it. He sat down in the armchair by
the chimney corner. I have been particular in my description
of him in order that my reader may give due
weight to his words. I am such a believer in
words that I believe everything depends on who says them.
Uncle Cornelius Heywood's story, told word for word by Uncle
Timothy Warren would not have been the same story at all.
Not one of the listeners would have believed a syllable
of it from the lips of round bodied, red faced,
small eyed little Uncle tim Whereas from Uncle Corny, disbelieve
one of his stories. If you could one word more
concerning him, his interest in everything conjectured or believed relative
to the awful borderland of this world and the next,
was only equaled by his disgust at the vulgar, unimaginative
forms which curiosity about such subjects has assumed in the
present day, with the yearning after the unseen, like that
of a child for the lifting of the curtain of
a theater, he declared that, rather than accept such a
spirit world as the would be seers of the nineteenth
century thought or pretended to reveal the profits of a
pouperized workhouse, immortality invented by a poverty stricken soul and
a sent so greedy that it would gorge on carrion,
he would rejoice to believe that a man had just
as much of a soul as the cabbage of Iamblicus,
namely an aerial double of his body. I'm so glad
you're come, uncle, said Kate. Why wouldn't you come to dinner?
We have been so gloomy. Well, Katy, you know I
don't admire eating. I never could bear to see a
cow tearing up the grass with her long tongue. As
he spoke, he looked very much like a cow. He
had a way of opening his jaws while he kept
his lips closely pressed together. That made his cheeks fall
in and his face look awfully long and dismal. I
consider eating he went on such an animal exercise that
it ought always to be performed in private. You never
saw me dine kate, never, Uncle, But I have seen
you drink nothing but water. I must confess, yes, that
is another affair. According to one eye witness, that is
no more than the disembodied can do. I must confess, however,
that although well attested, this story is to me scarcely credible.
Fancy a glass of Bavarian beer lifted into the air
without a visible hand, turned upside down, and set empty
on the table, and no splash on the floor or
anywhere else. A solitary gleam of humor shone through the
great eyes of the spectacles as he spoke. Oh, Uncle,
how can you believe such nonsense? Said Janet. I do
not say I believed it, did I? But why not?
The story has at least a touch of imagination in it.
That is a strange reason for believing a thing, Uncle
said Harry, you might have a worse Harry. I grant
it is not sufficient, but it is better than that
commonplace aspect, which is the ground of most faith. I
believe I did say that the story puzzled me, But
how can you give it any quarter at all? Uncle?
It does me no harm. There it is between the
boards of an old German book. There, let it remain well.
You will never persuade me to believe such things, said Janet.
Wait till I ask you, Janet returned her uncle gravely.
I have not the slightest desire to convince you. How
do we get into this unprofitable current of talk? We
will change it at once. How are consoles, Harry, oh, uncle,
said Kate. We were longing for a story, and just
as I thought you were coming to one, off you
go to consoles. I thought a ghost story at least
was coming, said Janet. You did your best to stop
at Janet, said Harry. Janet began in angry retort, but
Cornelius interrupted her. You never heard me tell a ghost story, Janet.
You have just told one about a drinking ghost, Uncle,
said Janet, in such a tone that Cornelius replied, well,
take that for your story, and let us talk of
something else. Janet apparently saw that she had been rude
and said as sweetly as she might. Ah, but you
didn't make that one, Uncle, You got it out of
a German book. May k it make a ghost story,
repeated Cornelius. No that I never did. Such things are
not to be trifled with, are they? Said Janet. I
at least have no inclination to trifle with them. But
really and truly, Uncle persisted Janet, you don't believe in
such things? Why should I either believe or disbelieve in them?
They are not essential to salvation. I presume you must
do the one or the other. I suppose I beg
your pardon. You suppose wrong. It would take twice the
proof I have ever had to make me believe in them,
and exactly your prejudice, and allow me to say ignorance
to make me disbelieve in them. Neither is within my reach.
I postpone judgment. But you young people, of course, are
wiser and know all about the question. Oh uncle, I'm
so sorry, said Kate. I'm sure I did not mean
to vex you, not at all, Not at all, my dear.
It wasn't you, do you know? Kate went on, anxious
to prevent anything unpleasant, for there was something very black
perched on Janet's forehead. I have taken to reading about
that kind of thing. I beg you will give it
up at once. You will bewilder your brains till you
are ready to believe anything, if only it be absurd enough. Nay,
you may come to find the element of vulgarity essential
to believe. I should be sorry to the heart to
believe concerning a horse or dog what they tell you
nowadays about Shakespeare and Burns. What have you been reading,
my girl? Don't be alarmed, uncle, only some highland legends
which are too absurd, either for my belief or for
your theories. I don't know that, Kate. Why what could
you do with such shapeless creatures as hot there fords
and pools, for instance? They are as featureless as the
faces of the mountains, and so much the more terrible.
But that does not make it easier to believe in them,
said Harry. I only said, returned his uncle, that their
shapelessness adds to their horror. 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, Katie, if you were to come upon an
Ichthiosaurus or a pterodactyl asleep in the shorebury, 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 traveler 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 lend 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 honor
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, though, stories may be such legends. But
that was not what I intended to lead you to.
I gave you that only a 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 remnants of a vanishing period of
the Earth's history long antecedent to the birth of Mastodon
and iguanadon 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 chimeras 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, wrote 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 marvelous helpies, ghosts, vampires, doubles, which
is 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 affrits 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, there lies a ghostly embryo, at least which
has an inner side to a 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 is 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 anyone 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 to 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 judgment 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, Katie, 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 humor came through the goggle eyes of Pebble,
and at length he actually smiled as he said, Really, Katie,
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 long legs. 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, Katy, 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 mustn'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 cowface. 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 that look like one. Though after so many delays,
Uncle Cornelius now plunged almost hurriedly into his narration. In
the year eighteen twenty, he said, in the month of August,
I fell in love. Here the girls glanced at each other.
The idea of Uncle Corny 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, said Harry demurely.
I did, as you will see, For I fell in love.
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 eighteen twenty,
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 am 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, though I was not
quite so much as I am now, for I find
it all nonsense about short sighted 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 Montague Place, just as I was about to turn
towards it, an old lady stepped upon the curbstone 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 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 any 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 address me. So
short sighted was I that though I recognized his voice
as when I ought to know, I could not identify
him until I have 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. Where are
you looking at, said James Heatheridge. I was looking after
that old lady, I answered, But I can't see her.
What old lady? Said Heatherage, with just a touch of impatience.
You must have seen her, I returned, you are 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 one.
Have you been dining, asked James, in a tone of
doubtful inquiry. No, I replied, not suspecting the insinuation. I've
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 Heatheridge, 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 careworn, eager old face, I had not been
able to recognize the well known countenance of James Heatherage.
That's what comes 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 drisly afternoon in the beginning of the
last week of October when I left the town of
Bradford in a post chaise to drive to Luton 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 unreasoned 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 and 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 visible 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 forever. 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, warm with shadows, and his
judgment be a very stable of hobbies. I was kindly
received missus Heatheradge had been dead for some years, and Letitia,
the eldest of the family, was at the head of
the household. She had two sisters, little more than girls.
The father was a burly yet gentleman like Yorkshire squire
who ate well, drank well, looked radiant, and hunted twice
a week, and this pastime his son joined him when
in the humor which happened scarcely so often, I, who
had never crossed a horse in my life, took his
apology for not being able to mount me very coolly,
assuring him that I would rather loiter about with a
book than be in at the death of the best
hunted fox in Yorkshire. I very soon found myself at
home with the Heatherages, and very soon again I began
to find myself not so much at home, for Miss Heatherage. Letitia,
as I soon ventured to call her, was fascinating. I
have told you, Katy, that there was an empty place
in my heart. Look to the door, then, Katie. That
was what made me so ready to fall in love
with Letitia. Her figure was graceful, and I think even
now her face would have been beautiful but for a
certain contraction of the skin over the nostrils, suggesting an
invisible thumb and forefinger pinching them, which repelled me. Although
I did not then know what it indicated. I had
not been with her one evening before the impression it
made on me had vanished, and that so entirely that
I could hardly recall the perception of the peculiarity which
had occasioned it. Her observationation was remarkably keen, and her
judgment generally correct. She had great confidence in it herself.
Nor was she devoid of sympathy with some of the
forms of human imagination. Only they never seemed to possess
for her any relation to practical life that was to
be ordered by the judgment alone. I do not mean,
she ever said, so. I am only giving the conclusions
I came too afterwards. It is not necessary that you
should have any more thorough acquaintance with her mental character.
One point in her moral nature of special consequence to
my narrative will show itself by and by. I did
all I could to make myself agreeable to her, and
the more I succeeded, the more delightful she became in
my eyes. We walked in the garden and grounds. Together,
we read, or rather I read and she listened. Read poetry, Katy,
sometimes till we could not read any more for certain
haziness and huskiness, which, look now, I am afraid considerably
more absurd than they really were, or even ought to look.
In short, I considered myself thoroughly in love with her.
And wasn't she in love with you? Uncle, don't interrupt me, child,
I don't know, I hoped so. Then I hope the contrary.
Now she liked me. I am sure that is not
much to say. Liking is very pleasant and very cheap.
Love is as rare as a star. I thought the
stars were anything but rare, Uncle. That's because you never
went out to find one for yourself, Katie. They would
prove a few miles apart then, but it would be
big enough when I did find it, right, my dear,
That is the way with love. Letitia was a good housekeeper.
Everything was punctual as clockwork. I used the word advisedly.
If her father, who was punctual to one date the
dinner hour, made any remark to the contrary as he
took the carving knife, Letitia would instantly send one of
her sisters to question the old clock in the hall
and report the time to half a minute. It was
sure to be found that if there was a mistake,
the mistake was in the clock. But although it was
certainly a virtue to have her household in such perfect order,
it was not a virtue to be impatient with every
infringement of its rules on the part of others. She
was very severe, for instance, upon her two younger sisters,
if the moment after the second bell had rung they
were not seated at the dinner table. Washed and aproned.
Order was a very idol with her. Hence the house
was too tidy for any sense of comfort. If you
left an open book on the table, you would, on
returning to the room a moment after, find it. Put
aside what the furniture of the drawing room was like,
I never saw, for not even on Christmas Day, which
was the last day I spent there, was it uncovered.
Everything in it was kept in bibbs and pinafore. Even
the carpet was covered with a cold and slippery sheet
of brown. Holland mister Heatherage never entered that room, and
therein was wise. James remonstrated once. She answered him quite kindly,
even playfully, but no change followed. What was worse, she
made very wretched tea. Her father never took tea, neither
did James. I was rather fond of it, but I
soon gave it up. Everything her father partook of was
first rate. Everything else was somewhat poverty stricken. My pleasure
in Letitia's society prevented me from making practical deductions from
such trifles. I shouldn't have thought you knew anything about eating, uncle,
said Janet. The less a man eats, the more he
likes to have it good Janet. In short, there can
be no harm in saying it now. Letitia was so
far from being like the name of her baptism. And
most names are so good that they are worth thinking about.
No children are named after bad ideas. Letitia was so
far unlike hers as to be stingy, an abominable fault.
But I repeat, the notion of such a fact was
far from me then and now from my story. The
first of November was a very lovely day, quite one
of the halcyon days of Saint Martin's summer. I was
sitting in a little arbor. I had just discovered with
a book in my hand, not reading, however, but day dreaming.
When lifting my eyes from the ground, I was startled
to see through a thin shrub in front of the
arbor what seemed the form of an old lady seated,
apparently reading from a book on her knee. The sight
instantly recalled the old lady of Russell Square. I started
to my feet, and then, clear of the intervening bush,
saw only a great stone, such as abounded on the
moors in the neighborhood, with a lump of quarts set
on the top of it. Some childish taste had put
it there for an ornament. Smiling at my own folly,
I sat down again and reopened my book. After reading
for a while, I glanced up again and once more
started to my feet, overcome by the fancy that there
verily sat the old lady reading. You will say it
indicated an excited condition of the brain. Possibly, but I was,
as far as I can recall, quite collected and reasonable.
I was almost vexed this second time, and sat down
once more to my book. Still, every time I looked up,
I was startled afresh. I doubt, however, if the trifle
is worth mentioning or has any significance even in relation
to what followed. After dinner, I strolled out by myself,
leaving father and son over their claret. I did not
drink wine, and from the lawn I could see the
windows of the library, whither Letitia commonly retired from the
dinner table. It was a very lovely, soft night. There
was no moon, but the star looked wider awake than usual.
Dew was falling, but the grass was not yet wet,
and I wandered about on it for half an hour.
The stillness was somehow strange. It had a wonderful feeling
in it, as if something were expected, as if the
quietness were the mold in which some event or other
was about to be cast. Even then I was a
reader of certain sorts of recondite lore. Suddenly I remembered
that this was the eve of all souls. This was
the night on which the dead came out of their
graves to visit their old homes. Poor dead, I thought
with myself, have you any place to call a home? Now?
If you have, surely you will not wander back here,
where all that you called home has either vanished or
given itself to others to be their home now and
yours no more. What an awful doom the old fancy
has allotted you to dwell in your graves all the year,
and creep out this one night to enter at the
midnight door left open for welcome. A poor welcome, truly,
just an open door, a clean swept floor, and a
fire to warm your ring sodden limbs. The household asleep,
and the house place swarming with the ghosts of ancient times,
the miser, the spendthrift, the profligate, the coquette. For the
good ghosts sleep and are troubled, with no waking like yours.
Not one man sleepless like yourselves, to question you and
be answered, after the fashion of the old nursery rhyme.
What makes your eyes so hold I've lain so long
among the mold? What makes your feet so broad? I've
walked more than I ever rode? Yet who can tell
I went on to myself? It may be your hell
to return. Thus it may be that only on this
one night of all the year you can show yourself
to him who can see you, But that the place
where you were wicked is the hades to which you
are doomed for ages. I thought and thought till I
began to feel the air alive about me, and was
enveloped in the vapors that dim the eyes of those
who strained them. For one peep through the dull mica
windows that will not open on the world of ghosts.
At length, I cast my fancies away and fled from
them to the library, where a bodily presence of Letitia
made the world of ghosts appear shadowy. Indeed, what a
reality there is about a bodily presence, I said to myself,
as I took my chamber candle in my hand. But
what is there more real in a body? I said again,
as I crossed the hall. Surely nothing, I went on
as I ascended the broad staircase to my room. The
body must vanish if there be a spirit that will remain.
A body can but vanish, a ghost can appear. I
woke in the morning with a sense of such discomfort
as made me spring out of bed. At once my
foot lighted upon my spectacles. How they came to be
on the floor I could not tell, for I never
took them off when I went to bed. When I
lifted them, I found they were in two pieces. The
bridge was broken. This was awkward. I was so utterly
helpless without them. Indeed, before I could lay my hand
on my hair brush, I had to peer through one
eye of the parted pair. When I looked up my
watch after I was dressed, I found I had risen
an hour earlier than usual. I groped my way downstairs
to spend the hour before breakfast in the library. No
sooner was I seated with a book than I heard
the voice of Letitia scolding the butler in no very
gentle tones for leaving the garden door open all night.
The moment I heard this, the strange occurrences I'm about
to relate began to dawn upon my memory the door
had been opened the night long between all saints and
all souls. In the middle of that night, I awoke. Suddenly.
I knew it was not the morning by the sensations
I had, for the night feels altogether different from the morning.
It was quite dark, My heart was beating violently, and
I either hardly could or hardly dared breathe. A nameless
terror was upon me, and my sense of hearing was, apparently,
by the force of its expectation, unnaturally roused and keen.
There it was a slight noise in the room, slight
but clear, and with an unknown significance about it. It
was awful to think it would come again. I do
believe it was only one of those creeks and the
timbers which announced the torpid age, long sinking flow of
every house back to the dust, a motion to which
the flow of the glacier is as a torrent, but
which is no less inevitable and sure. Day and night
it ceases not but only in the night, when house
and hard are still we hear it. No wonder it
should sound fearful, for are we not the immortal dwellers
in ever crumbling clay? The clay is so near us,
and yet not of us, that its every movement starts
afresh dismay. Or what will its final ruin disclose when
it falls from about us? Where shall we find that
we have existed all the time? My skin tingled with
the bursting of the moisture from its pores. Something was
in the room beside me, A confused, indescribable sense of
utter loneliness, and yet awful presence was upon me, mingled
with a dreary, hopeless desolation, as of burnt out love
and aimless life. All at once I found myself sitting up.
The terror that a cold hand might be laid upon me,
or a cold breath blow on me, or a corpselike
face bend down through the darkness over me had broken
my bonds. I would meet half way whatever might be.
Approaching the moment that my will burst into action, the
terror began to ebb. The room in which I slept
was a large one, perfectly dreary with tidiness. I did
not know to laughterwards that it was Letitia's room, which
she had given up to me rather than prepare another.
The furniture, all but one article, was modern and commonplace.
I could not help remarking to myself afterwards, how utterly
void the room was, of the nameless charm of feminine occupancy.
I had seen nothing to wake a suspicion of its
being a lady's room. The article I have accepted was
an ancient bureau, elaborate and ornate, which stood on one
side of the large bow window. The very morning before
I had seen a bunch of keys hanging from the
upper part of it, and had peeped in, finding however,
that the pigeonhole were full of papers. I closed it
at once. I should have been glad to use it,
but clearly it was not for me. At that bureau,
the figure of a woman was now seated, and the
posture of one writing. A strange dim light was around her.
But whence it proceeded, I never thought of inquiring, as
if I too had stepped over the bourne and was
a ghost myself. All fear was now gone. I got
out of bed and softly crossed the room to where
she was seated. If she should be beautiful, I thought,
for I had often dreamed of a beautiful ghost that
made love to me. The figure did not move. She
was looking at a faded brown paper, some old love letter,
I thought, and stepped nearer. So cool was I now
that I actually peeped over her shoulder. With mingled surprise
and dismay, I found that the dim page over which
she bent was that of an old account book, ancient
household records, and rusty ink held up to the glimpses
of the waning moon which shone through the parting and
the curtains, their entrees of shillings and pence of pounds,
there was not one, No doubt, pounds and farthings are
much the same in the world of thought, the true
spirit world. But in the ghost world this eagerness over
shillings and pence must mean something awful. To think that
coins which had since been worn smooth in other pockets,
and purses which had gone back to the mint and
been melted down, to come out again and yet again
with the heads of new kings and queens, that dinners
eaten by men and women and children whose bodies had
since been eaten by the worms, that polish for the floors,
inches of whose thickness had since been worn away. That
the hundred nameless trifles of a life utterly vanished should
be perplexing, annoying, and worst of all interesting the soul
of a ghost who had been in hades for centuries.
The writing was very old fashioned, and the words were contracted.
I could read nothing but the monies and one single entry,
corinths versus currants for a Christmas pudding. Most likely, Ah,
poor lady, the pudding and not the Christmas was her care,
not the delight of the children over it, but the
beggarly pence which it cost, and she cannot get it
out of her head, although her brain was powdered, all
as thin as flower ages ago in the mortar of death,
alas poor ghost. It needs no treasured hoard left behind,
no floor stained with the blood of the murdered child,
no wickedly hidden parchment of landed rights. An old account
book is enough for the hell of the housekeeping gentlewoman.
She never lifted her face or seemed to know that
I stood behind her. I left her and went into
the bow window, where I could see her face. I
was right. It was the same old lady I had
met in Russell Square, walking in front of James Heatherage.
Her withered lips went moving, as if they would have
uttered words had the breath been commissioned. Thither, her brow
was contracted over her thin nose, and once and again
her shining forefinger went up to her temple, as if
she were pondering some deep problem of humanity. How long
I stood gazing at her, I do not know, But
at last I withdrew to my bed and left her
struggling to solve that which she could never solve. Thus
it was the symbolic problem of her own life. And
she had failed to read it. I remember nothing more.
She may be sitting there, still solving at the insolvable.
I should have felt no inclination, with the broad sun
of the squire's face, the keen eyes of James, and
the beauty of Letitia before me at the breakfast table,
to say a word about what I had seen, even
if I had not been afraid of the doubt concerning
my sanity, would which the story would certainly awaken. What
with the memories of the night and the want of
my spectacles, I passed a very dreary day, dreading the
return of the night. For cool as I had been
in her presence, I could not regard the possible reappearance
of the ghost with equanimity. But when the night did come,
I slept soundly till the morning the next day. Not
being able to read with comfort, I went wandering about
the place, and at length began to fit the outside
and inside of the house together. It was a large
and rambling edifice, parts of it very old, parts comparatively modern.
I first found my own window, which looked out of
the back. Below this window, on one side there was
a door. I wondered whither it led, but found it
locked at the moment James approached from the stables. Where
does this door lead, I asked him, I will get
the key, he answered. It is rather a queer old place.
We used to like it when we were children. There's
a stair, you see, he said, as he threw the
door open. It leads up over the kitchen. I followed
him up the stair. There's a door into your room,
he said, but it's always locked now. And here's Granny's room,
as they call it. Though why I have not the
least idea, he added, as he pushed open the door
of an old fashioned parlor, smelling very musty. A few
old books lay on a side table. A china bull
stood beside them, with some shriveled, scentless rose leaves in
the bottom of it. The cloth that covered the table
was riddled by moss, and the spider legged chairs were
covered with dust. A conviction sees me that the old
bureau must have belonged to this room, and I soon
found the place where I judged it must have stood.
But the same moment I caught sight of a portrait
on the wall above the spot I had fixed upon
by Jove. I cried involuntarily. That's the very old lady
I met in Russell Square. Nonsense, said James. Old fashioned
ladies are like babies. They all look the same. That's
a very old portrait, so I see, I answered, it
is like Azukaro. I don't know whose it is, he
answered hurriedly, And I thought he looked a little queer.
Is she one of the family, I asked. They say so,
But who or what she was I don't know. You
must ask Letty, he answered. The more I look at it,
I said, the more I am convinced it is the
same old lady. Well, he returned with a laugh. My
old nurse used to say she was rather restless. But
it's all nonsense. That bureau in my room looks about
the same date as this furniture, I remarked. It used
to stand just there, he answered, pointing to the space
under the picture. Well, I remember with what awe we
used to regard it, for, they said, the old lady
kept her accounts at it. Still we never dared touch
the bundles of yellow papers in the pigeon holes. I
remember thinking Letty a very heroine once when she touched
one of them with the tip of her forefinger. She
had got yet more courageous by the time she had
it moved into her own room. Then that is your
sister's room. I am occupied, I said, yes, I am
ashamed of keeping her out of it. Oh, she'll do
well enough if I were she, though, I added, I
would send that bureau back to its own place. What
do you mean, Heywood, do you believe every old wife's
tale that was ever told. She may get a fright
some day, That's all I replied. He smiled with such
an evident mixture of pity and contempt that for the
moment I almost disliked him, and, feeling certain that Letitia
would receive any such hint in a somewhat similar manner,
I did not feel inclined to offer her any advice
with regard to the bureau Little cour During the rest
of my visit, worthy of remark, somehow or other, I
did not make my progress with Letitia. I believe I
had begun to see into her character a little, and
therefore did not get deeper in love. As the days
went on, I know I became less absorbed in her society,
though I was still anxious to make myself agreeable to her,
or perhaps more properly, to give her a favorable impression
of me. I do not know whether she perceived any
difference in my behavior, but I remember that I began
again to remark the pinched look of her nose, and
to be a little annoyed with her for always putting
aside my book. At the same time, I dare say
I was provoking, for I never was given to tidiness myself.
At length, Christmas Day arrived. After breakfast, the Squire James,
and the two girls arranged to walk to church. Letitia
was not in the room at the moment. I excuse
myself on the ground of a headache, for I had
had a bad night. When they left, I went up
to my room, threw myself on the bed, and was
soon fast asleep. Along I slept, I did not know,
but I woke again with that indescribable yet well known
sense of not being alone. The feeling was scarcely less
terrible in the daylight than it had been in the darkness.
With the same sudden effort as before, I sat up
in the bed. There was the figure at the open
bureau in precisely the same position as on the former occasion.
But I could not see it so distinctly. I rose
as gently as I could, and approached it after the
first physical terror. I am not a coward. Just as
I got near enough to see the account book open
on the folding cover of the bureau, she started up,
and turning revealed the face of Letitia. She blushed Crimson.
I beg your pardon, mister Heywood, she said, in great confusion.
I thought you had gone to church with the rest.
I had lain down with a headache and gone to sleep,
I replied. But forgive me, miss Heatherage, I added, for
my mind was full of the dreadful coincidence. Don't you
think you would have been better at church than balancing
your accounts on Christmas Day? The better day, the better deed,
She said, with a somewhat offended air, and turned to
walk from the room. Excuse me, Letitia, I resumed, very seriously,
But I want to tell you something. She looked conscious.
It never crossed me that perhaps she fancied I was
going to make a confession. Far other things were then
in my mind, for I thought how awful it was
if she, too, like the ancestral ghost, should have to
do an age long penance of haunting that bureau and
those horrid figures, and I had suddenly resolved to tell
her the whole story. She listened with varying complexion and
face half turned aside. When I had ended, which I
fear I did was something of a personal appeal, she
lifted her head and looked me in the face, with
just a slight girl on her thin lip, and answered me.
If I had wanted a sermon, mister Heywood, I should
have gone to church for it. As for the ghost,
I am sorry for you, so saying, she walked out
of the room. The rest of the day I did
not find very merry. I pleaded my headache as an
excuse for going to bed early. How I hated the
room now next morning, immediately after breakfast, I took my
leave of Luton Grange and lost a good wife, perhaps
for the sake of a ghost, uncle, said Janet. If
I lost a wife at all, it was a stingy one.
I should have been ashamed of her all my life long.
Better than a spendthrift, said Janet. How do you know
that returned her uncle? All the difference I see is
that the extravagant ruins, the rich and the stingy robs
the poor. But perhaps she repented, Uncle said Kate, I
don't think she did, Katie. Look here, Uncle Cornelius drew
from the breast pocket of his coat a black edged letter.
I have kept up my friendship with her brother, he said.
All he knows about the matter is that either we
had a quarrel or she refuse me. He is not
sure which I must say for Letitia that she was
no tattler. Well, here's a letter I had from James
this very morning. I will read it to you, my
dear Heywood. We have had a terrible shot this morning.
Letty did not come down to breakfast, and Lizzie went
to see if she was ill. We heard her scream,
and rushing up, there was poor Letty sitting at the
old Bureau quite dead. She had fallen forward on the desk,
and HER's housekeeping book was crumpled up under her. She
had been so all night long, we suppose, for she
was not undressed and was quite cold. The doctor say
it was disease of the heart. There, said Uncle Corney,
folding up the letter. Do you think the ghost had
anything to do with her? Uncle asked Kate, almost under
her breath. How should I know, my dear. Possibly it's
very sad, said Janet. But I don't see the good
of it all. If the ghost had come to tell
that she had hidden away money in some secret place
in the old bureau, one would see why she had
been permitted to come back. But what was the good
of those accounts after they were over and done with?
I don't believe in the ghost, ah, Janet, Janet, But
those wretched accounts were not over and done with. You see,
that is the misery of it. Uncle Cornelius rose, without
another word, bade them good night, and walked out into
the wind and of Uncle Cornelius. His story by George
mac donald