Short Stories 1895-1926 (80 page)

And the tinker began to grow ashamed and fretful at losing his evening's entertainment in Treboath. But about ten o'clock by the distant chimes, and they still watching silent in the misty garden, he heard a faint yet wonderfully clear voice cry, ‘Ellen, Ellen!'; but yet no spirit appeared. The cricket ceased awhile. And then a low and dreadful cry sounded above their heads – ‘as if her heart was broken', said the tinker.

At that the old man rose up without a word and went into the darkness of the house.

The tinker waited, but he heard and saw nothing more. Then feeling rather sick and giddy, he cautiously climbed up into the pear-tree again, not fearing the coming of the ghost now at all, he told me, and looked across at the window. It was wide open, he could see, and he heard the old man sobbing and crying like a child; but he could distinguish nothing in the inner darkness; there was no light in the room.

Leap Year

Leap Year
1

‘But you are, aren't you?' said Judy.

‘It depends on the
kind
of question,' said I.

‘I mean about what one ought and ought not to do; propriety, conventionality, and all that!'

‘Ethics, my dear young lady, is every man's speciality!'

‘But is Leap Year ethics?' asked Judy rather forlornly.

‘“Leap Year”!' I echoed; ‘you didn't say anything about Leap Year. Oh, no! That's not in my line at all!'

Judy put her hands together, and leaning forward in her chair, stared into the fire.

‘What I mean is this,' she said: ‘could any really
nice
woman – really, really nice, mind – propose?'

‘Propose what?' I inquired stubbornly.

‘Well,' said Judy, drawing her hands back softly and leaning still more forward, ‘to a man.'

‘If you are not very careful, Judy,' I pleaded, ‘you'll topple over into the fire. Propose what – to a man?'

‘Propose
what
!
' repeated Judy scornfully. ‘You're simply being stupid on purpose.'

‘Never,' said I firmly, ‘it's second nature.'

‘Well, could one?' repeated Judy gravely.

‘One
could,
' I said.

‘
Should
one?'

‘It depends, I think,' I said reflectively, ‘partly on the man. What's his income?'

Judy very gently lifted the tiny poker she was so fond of spoiling the fire with.

‘Don't, please, be quite horrid,' she said.

‘First “dull”, I said, ‘now “horrid”.'

‘Because, you see,' said Judy, plunging in her tiny weapon almost to the knob, ‘I feel I ought to: and that's flat!'

I stirred, I hope, never so much as a hair's-breadth.

‘I'll have nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with other people's “oughts”', I said firmly; ‘not even with yours, my dear child.'

‘My dear grandmother,' said Judy.

‘Well, anyhow, I won't,' I said.

‘You see,' continued Judy quietly, almost cowering over the glowing coals, ‘I feel to some extent that if he thinks I have been – well, pretending; you know what I mean,
pretending
– it would be only right of me to give him the chance of – of having his revenge. Please do try and understand.'

‘Revenge?' I repeated, ‘revenge? What ridiculous rubbish! Who
is
this precious “he”, may I ask? He must be a deuced poor chap, if he thinks you haven't a perfect right to pretend whatever you please. And what's more: why on earth did he ever give you the chance?'

‘What chance?'

‘Of pretending,' I answered, perhaps not quite without bitterness.

‘When so many questions come all at once,' replied Judy, ‘I never answer any. Besides, you haven't answered mine.'

‘What is the use?' I expostulated; ‘what is the use of asking
me
? I'm not your guardian; I'm not a Court of Love; I'm not a Correspondence Column; I'll hear nothing about the conceited fool. Is it likely I should advise one way or the other? You must use your own – discretion, my dear —'

‘Grandmother!' interposed Judy. And there was a rather strained pause.

‘You see,' began Judy again, abandoning her little poker to its glowing chasm of cinders, ‘he's so too awfully shy – not shy, modest – oh, no, not modest – I mean he has such an absurdly, wretchedly small opinion of himself.'

‘So long as it's true,' said I, ‘I don't see that it matters.'

‘But it isn't,' said Judy, casting me a fleeting glance of shining eyes.

‘
I
should if it were me.'

‘If what were “me”?' asked Judy curiously.

‘Why, if
I
had philandered like that, or taken it into my head that a pretty girl, and a straight, “really, really nice girl” too – for you are, Judy' (I heard myself speaking rather sadly) ‘in spite of being pretty – if I thought that such a girl as that hadn't the right to turn the head of any fool she pleased — Why shouldn't she? I suppose the silly chap enjoyed it. And as for thinking her to be in earnest, he must be the most insufferable prig that ever breathed. And you haven't absolutely the remotest reason for considering him at all. Hang Leap Year!'

‘I see,' said Judy, and sank into silence again.

‘How's Jack?' I inquired politely, after a protracted and rather arduous pause.

‘Oh, it isn't Jack,' said Judy, speaking muffledly through her fingers.

‘I don't suggest it,' I said mildly. ‘You see, I didn't gather that this
was
a guessing game. It would take far too long. Besides, I'm “horrid” as well as “dull” – how could you expect it of me?'

‘You mean, I suppose, by “far too long” ', said Judy tonelessly, ‘that I have had
scores
.'

‘“Scores”?'

‘Of “Jacks”.'

‘Honi soit qui mal y pense.'

‘But you said just now it wasn't “mal”,' said Judy.

‘Only in excess.'

‘Well,' said Judy, sitting suddenly back, and turning to me her fire-flushed face in the gloaming, ‘you'll let the chance go by, then?'

‘What chance?' I managed to ask rather thickly, staring blankly into those eyes of childlike sincerity, and could say no more.

‘The chance of telling him that I am not a co — a worthless humbug – a mere, silly, selfish, odious every-man's – flirt!'

‘He's an utter blackguard, if he thinks a tenth of it.'

‘But
does
he? You said just now “only in excess”.'

She continued to confront me with shining eyes that yet were not shining only, but still and calm and brave and truthful.

I stooped down, and rather gingerly removed the tiny poker from its absorbing environment.

‘Who?' I all but spluttered.

‘Who? What?' said Judy, still unstirring.

‘Oh, who's the man?' said I, tired out. And then it seemed the glowing fire, everything, went black, and only by sheer blindman's intuition I had found and seized her hand. ‘If you do ask him,' I said, ‘as sure as you're a heartless, hopeless hypocrite, I'll blow his brains out.'

She never stirred; and gradually the darkness thinned away, and left me utterly sick and cold. I tried in vain to withdraw my hands.

‘Harry, Harry,' she said very quickly, as if to race eternal silence, ‘won't you understand?
Won't
you, dear?
That
would be
suicide
.'

Promise at Dusk

Promise at Dusk
1

A doctor hears many strange stories, which must for ever remain a secret confidence between himself and his patients. But the story that my old friend, whom we will call Purcell, told me cannot, I think, be so considered. We were sitting one evening in his long garden, just after the fall of dusk, smoking together. His wife had been dangerously (but quite triumphantly) ill; and this was a few evenings afterwards.

‘You know, of course,' he said half apologetically, ‘that she has always been very nervous and high-strung; at least —' He broke off and puffed softly on, narrowing his eyes, his hands resting one over the other on his knee. A robin was chattering in the lilac bushes. ‘I don't think I ever told you how we actually met. There's no harm in telling…Is there?'

‘Well, that's best answered when I've heard,' I replied. And we laughed.

Well, you remember – oh, years ago – when I used to live with my mother at Witchelham? It was an absurdly long journey from town. But she liked the country; and so, nearly two hours every day of my life, except Saturdays and Sundays, were spent in rumbling up and down on that antediluvian branch line.

I believe they bought their carriages second-hand. We had an amazing collection of antiques. The stations, too, were that kind of stranded Noah's ark in a garden, which make it rather jolly to look out of the window in the summer, with their banks of flowers, and martins in the eaves. A kind of romance hung over the very engines. You felt in some of the carriages like a savant confronted with a papyrus he can't read. It was all very vague, of course. But there it was.

One evening, a Tuesday in December, I left my office rather later than usual. There had been a lofty fog most of the day; all the lights flared yellow and amber, and the traffic was muffled to a woolly roar. The station was nearly empty. An early train, the 5.3, coming in late, had carried off most of the usual passengers, and only just we few long-distance ones were left.

I walked slowly along the platform, past the silent, illuminated carriages, and got into No. 3399 – a ‘Second'. The number, of course, I noticed afterwards. It was cushioned in deep crimson, lit unusually clearly with oil; half a window-strap was gone, and the strings of the luggage bracket hung down in one corner – like a cockatrice's tent. It was haunted, too, by the very faintest of fragrances, as if it had stood all the summer with windows wide open in a rose garden.

I sat down in the right-hand corner facing the engine, and began to read. Footsteps passed now and again; fog signals detonated out of space; a whistle sounded, and then, rather like an indolent and timid centipede, we crept out of the station. I read on until I presently found that I hadn't for quite some little while been following the sense of what I was reading. Back I went a page or two, and failed again.

Then I put the book down, and found myself in this rather clearly-lit old crimson carriage alone – quite curiously alone. You know what I mean; just as one is alone in a ballroom when the guests have said good-bye after a dance; just as one's alone after a funeral. It pressed on me. I was rather tired, and perhaps a little run down, so that I keenly welcomed all such vague psychological nuances. The carriage was vacant then, richly, delicately, absorbingly vacant.

Who had gone out? I know this sounds like utter nonsense. I assure you, though, it was just as it affected me then. There was first this very faint suggestion of flowers in this almost sinister amber lamplight; that was nothing in itself; but there was also an undefined presence of someone, a personality of someone here, too, as obviously reminiscent of a reality as the perfume was reminiscent of once-real flowers.

The 5.29 did not stop near town, loitered straight on to Thornwood, missed Upland Bois, and launched itself into Witchelham. All that interminable journey – for the fog had fallen low with nightfall – I sat and brooded on this curious impression, on all such impressions, however faint and illusory. So deep did I fall into reverie that when I came to myself and looked up, I was first conscious that the train was at a standstill, and next that I was no longer alone. In the farther and opposite corner of the carriage a lady was sitting. The air between us was the least bit dimmed with fog. But I saw her, none the less, quite clearly – a lady in deep black.

Her right hand was gloveless and lay in her lap. On her left hand her chin was resting, so that the face was turned away from me towards the black glass of the window. Whether it was her deep mourning, her utter stillness, something in her attitude, I cannot say. I only know that I had never seen such tragic and complete dejection in any human creature before. And yet something was wanting, something was absent. How can I describe it? I can only say it was as if I was dreaming her there. She was absolutely real to my mind, to myself; and yet I knew, by some extraordinary inward instinct, that if I did but turn my head, withdraw my eyes, she would be gone.

I watched her without stirring, simply watched her, overwhelmed with interest and pity, and a kind of faint anxiety or apprehension. And suddenly, I cannot more exactly express it, I became conscious that my eyes were out of focus, that they were fixed with extreme attention on – nothing at all.

I cannot say I was alarmed, nor even astonished. It was rather vexation, disappointment. But as I looked, glancing about me, I became conscious of a small, oblong, brown-paper package, lying partly hidden under the armrest of the seat only just now so mysteriously occupied, and as mysteriously vacated.

Directly I became aware of it, it seemed, of course, extraordinarily conspicuous. Could I by the faintest chance in the world have overlooked it on first entering the carriage? I see now that it must have been so. But at the time I was convinced it was impossible.

I took up the package, felt it, shook it, and then, without the least excuse or compunction in the world, untied the string and opened the plain wooden case within. It contained a small six-chambered revolver. It was inlaid with mother-of-pearl – a beautiful, deadly little weapon. I scrutinized it for a moment almost in confusion, then I flung down the carriage window, just in time to see the face of the station-master momentarily illumined in the fog as we crept out of Thornwood. I hastily shut the box and packed it, paper and all, into my pocket.

It was entirely intuitive, simply the irresistible caprice of the moment, but I felt I could not surrender it; I felt certain that I should sooner or later meet with its owner. I would surrender it then.

The next day seemed interminable. Fog still hung over the city. I longed to get back to my haunted carriage. I felt vaguely expectant, as if some very distant, scarcely audible voice were calling to me, questioningly, appealingly. I was convinced that my ghost was really a ghost, a phantasm, an apparition – not an hallucination. Surely an event so rare and inexplicable must have a sequel.

Out into the misty street (which, in the mist, indeed seemed thronged with phantoms) I turned once more that evening with an excitement I cannot describe – such an excitement as one feels when one is about to meet again a long-absent, a very close and intimate friend.

Again the 5.3 had befriended me. The platform was nearly empty when the 5.29 backed slowly into the station. I had expected no obstacle, had encountered none. Here was my 3399, its lamp, perhaps, not quite so lustrous, its crimson a little dimmed.

I entered and sat down in my corner, like a spider in its newly-spun web. What prompted such certainty, such conviction, I cannot conceive. The few minutes passed, passengers walked deliberately by. Some glanced in; one old lady, with a reticule and gold spectacles, peered hesitatingly, peered again, all but entered, and, as if suddenly alarmed, hastily withdrew. We were already late.

And then, just at the last moment, as the doors were beginning to slam, I heard with extraordinary distinctness what it seemed I had for long been waiting for – a light and hurried footfall. It paused, came nearer, paused again, and then (although I simply could not turn my head to look) I knew that there, looking in on me, searchingly, anxiously, stood framed in the misty doorway – my ghost.

Still she hesitated. But it was too late to retreat. She entered, for I heard the rustling of her gown. And then, at once, the train began to move. At last, when we were really rumbling on, I managed to turn my head. There she sat, completely in black, her left hand in her lap, her chin lightly resting on the other, her eyes gazing gravely and reflectively, yet with a curious fixity, out of the window. She did not stir. So slim, so unreal, she looked in her dead black, it seemed almost that this might be illusion, too – this, too, an apparition.
Almost,
but how surely, how convincingly, not quite.

It sounds absurd, but so absorbed again I grew in watching her, so lost in thought, I think I sighed. Whether or not, she suddenly turned her head and looked at me with startled eyes and parted lips. And, I think, the faintest red rose in her cheeks.

I leaned forward. ‘You won't please misunderstand me – my speaking, I mean. I think, perhaps, if I might explain … you would forgive me …' I blundered on.

She raised her eyebrows, faintly and distantly smiling. But I felt vaguely certain that somehow she had foreseen my being there. ‘I don't quite see why one should
have
to explain,' she said indifferently. ‘You could not ask me to forgive anything that would need forgiveness. But tonight, you must please excuse me. I am so very tired I don't really think I could listen. I know I couldn't answer.'

‘It's only this, just this,' I replied in confusion. ‘Something has happened: I can't explain now; only if I should seem inexcusably inquisitive – horribly so, perhaps – you will understand when I do explain … You need but answer yes or no to three brief questions – I cannot tell you how deeply interested I am in their answers. May I?'

She frowned a little, and turned again to the window. ‘What is the first question?' she asked coldly.

‘The first is – please don't suppose that I do not already know the answer, instinctively, as it were, en rapport – have you ever travelled in this carriage before, No. 3399?'

Could you imagine a more inane way of putting it? I knew that she had, with absolute certainty. But, none the less, she feigned to be unsure. Her eyes scrutinized every corner, but indifferently, and finally settled on the broken netting. ‘Yes,' she said simply. ‘But as for the number – I don't think I knew railway carriages
were
numbered.' She turned her eyes again directly on mine.

‘Were you alone?' I said, and held my breath.

She frowned. ‘I don't see —' she began. ‘But, yes,' she broke off obstinately. ‘It was the night before last. I was alone.'

I turned for a moment to the window. ‘The last question,' I went on slowly, ‘could only possibly be forgiven to one who was a very real, or hoped to be a very real, faithful friend.' We looked gently and calmly, and just in that curious instantaneous way, immortally as it were, into each other's eyes.

‘Well?' she said.

‘You were in extreme trouble?'

She did not at once reply. Her beautiful face grew not paler, more shadowy. She leaned one narrow hand on the crimson seat, and still looked with utterly frank, terribly miserable, desolate eyes into mine. ‘I think – I had got beyond,' she said.

What sane thing could I offer for a confidence so generous and so childlike? ‘Well,' I said, ‘it's the same world for all.'

She shook her head and smiled. ‘I remember one quite, quite different. But still,' she continued gravely, as if speaking to herself, and still leaning on her hand, ‘it is nearly over now. And I can take an interest, a real interest, in what you might tell me; I mean, as to how you came to know, and why you ask.'

I told her simply of my dream, the hallucination, psychic experience, or whatever you may care to call it.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I
did
sit here. It is very, very strange. It …' and then, she stopped as if waiting, as if fearing to go on.

I said nothing for a moment, knowing not what to say. At last I took out the little wooden case just as it was. ‘I cannot ask forgiveness
now
,' I said, ‘but this – is it yours?'

She nodded with a slight shudder. Every trace of colour left her face.

‘You left it in the train on Monday?'

She nodded.

‘And today' – it was a wild, improbable guess – ‘today you came to town to look for it, to inquire about it?'

She did not answer, merely sat transfixed, with hard, unmoving eyes and trembling lip.

‘I can't help what you may think, how you may resent my asking. I can't shirk responsibility. I know this is not an accident. I cannot believe it was an accident which sent me here last night. I cannot believe God ever meant any trouble, any grief, to have
this
for an end. If I give it you, will you promise me something?'