looking round to see that nobody was coming up the walk, ‘in the
middle of the night I smelt smoke, and thought right off that the barn
must be a-burnin’, but I couldn’t see no light; then I heard a sort of
smothered noise, and I suspicioned right off what was the matter. I run
to Maria’s room and found her stumblin’ round in the dark--her room
bein’ full of smoke she was sort of confused--and there was a turrible
glare out in the hall. We found Miss Hannah out there wringin’ her
hands and callin’ out: “Oh, the trunk will be burnt up, the trunk will
be burnt up!” We couldn’t coax her to go away, and it did seem as she’d
burn up in her tracks if I hadn’t just took her and carried her out.
By that time the house was all blazin’, and, though the folks began to
come, it wan’t no use--it had to go. Hannah she was all dressed, and I
don’t believe she had been to bed.’
‘You don’t think she _set_ the house afire, Hiram?’
‘No, not a-meanin’ to; but what I think is that she felt lonesome
without that trunk, and so she went down to the hall-closet when she
thought we was asleep, and either she dropped her candle or else the
things that hung in the closet caught fire, and she didn’t see it till
’t was too late, and then she was so fearful that the trunk would burn
she wouldn’t go away.’
‘What was in the trunk?’
Hiram shuffled from one foot to the other, then hesitated a little, and
said:
‘Jane, I’ve been comin’ to see you a good many years, most ever since
we was young, and yet we haint never exactly spoke of gittin’ married
till lately; but they aint so slow down in the city, and I guess Hannah
sort of expected to git married to that sea-captain down to Salem.
Anyways, whatever she kept in that trunk it came from Salem, and I
_guess_ ’twas some stuff he gave her.’
‘You don’t say so, all these years!’
* * * * *
In Paris, Mrs. Grant, with her husband, sat over the breakfast coffee
in their little parlor in the Hotel St. Romain. The window opened on
the balcony overhanging the Rue St. Roch. From the narrow street below
floated the cry, ‘_Les moules, les moules?_’ mingled with the clap,
clap of the horses’ hoofs on the asphalt below. The _concierge_ sang
as he swept the sidewalk before the door, and the newsboys cried, with
their plaintive intonation, ‘_Le Figaro, Le Figaro! Le P’tit Journal!_’
‘Roger,’ said Mrs. Grant, ‘I had such a curious dream last night.
I suppose I must have been asleep, but I seemed to be awake, when
suddenly I saw Aunt Hannah standing at the foot of my bed, just between
the two posts. She stood quite still, and her eyes were fixed on
me with her peculiar expression of reserve, but also as if she had
an intense desire to speak. I was just going to cry out, “Why, Aunt
Hannah, is that you?” when suddenly I felt very passive, and as if a
change was going on. The curtains of my bed moved back slowly, and
I was again in that mysterious little room. I seemed to see either
myself or my mother, I could not tell which it was, as a little girl,
lying on the sofa; it was that same blue-chintz sofa I told you about;
everything in the room was exactly as I remember seeing it when I was a
child, even to the shell and the book on the shelf.
‘I can’t express to you how it was that I saw the little girl lying
there; it was as if my mind was compelled by some other mind to see
the little girl and the little room; and all the time I did not know
whether it was my mother or myself as a child that I was looking at,
and I could feel all the time my Aunt Hannah’s gray eyes, though I
could not see her while the vision of the little room lasted.
‘It was some minutes before the scene began to fade, and it did so very
gradually, just as it came: first, the roses and blue morning-glories
on the paper began to waver and grow indistinct; then one object after
another trembled and faded. It was exactly as if something outside of
myself compelled me to see these things; and then, as the pressure of
that other will was removed, the impression gradually disappeared. The
last to go was the figure of the little girl, but she too faded; the
bed-curtains seemed to evolve out of the walls of the room, and I was
lying on my bed; but Aunt Hannah still stood between the foot-posts,
with her eyes fixed on mine. Then came the impression that she could
not speak, but that she wanted to convey some thought to me; and then
these words came to me--not as if a voice spoke them, but as if they
were being printed on my mind or consciousness:
‘“Margaret, you must not worry any more about the Little Room, it has
no connection with you or your mother, and it never had any: it all
belongs to me. I am sorry that my secret ever troubled anyone else; I
tried to keep it to myself, but sometimes it would get out. There’ll
never be any Little Room to trouble anybody else any more.”
‘All the time I was hearing these words I felt Aunt Hannah’s eyes;
and then she began to move backward, slowly, and she seemed to vanish
down a long, long distance, till I lost sight of her. The last thing I
saw was her gray eyes fastened on my face. I awoke, and found myself
sitting up, with my head bent forward, looking right between the
foot-posts of the bed.’
‘Your Aunt Hannah seems to be more fond of travelling than she used to
be. Paris is further from Titusville than Brooklyn,’ said Mr. Grant,
lightly.
‘Oh, don’t, Roger, don’t! I think Aunt Hannah must be dead.’
[Illustration]
MY GHOST OF A CHANCE.
‘Truly, a most fitting place for the Starvation Act,’ said the Author,
as he laid a fresh supply of stationery on the table, ‘and a whole week
to do it in, unless the story pans out well, which of course it won’t;
I don’t suppose there’s a ghost of a chance of that.’
‘Here I am!’
‘Oh, there you are! yes, to be sure, so you are. And how do you do? I
hope you will excuse my saying it, but aren’t you an uncommonly small
ghost?’
‘Yes, I am slim; but I’ve seen smaller chances, and you know I am all
the one you have got.’
‘Why, yes, as William has it, “A poor thing, but mine own.” Allow me to
help you up on the table; there, how is that? Do you think you could
sit on that cuff-box and rest your feet on the pen-wiper? I am afraid
the table is rather bare and cold, and you don’t look very well. Is
that comfortable?’
‘Oh, very, thank you;--and now you may begin.’
‘Yes, in a minute. I want to ask you first if you really are my only
chance?’
‘Yes, absolutely your only one,’ said the small figure sitting on the
box, with his hands resting on his knees. He was a clever-looking
little ghost, eight or nine inches high, clean shaven, with his hair
brushed back to hide an evidently increasing tendency to baldness--he
was not in his first youth. He was plainly but neatly dressed, though
his clothes looked a little shiny at the seams. His face was careworn
and anxious in its expression, but attractive, and his manners were
unobjectionable.
‘So you are my only chance, are you? May I ask where you came from?’
‘Oh, I am sent here from the “Bureau of Chances”; we have to go just
wherever we are sent, you know; we haven’t any choice in the matter.’
‘Yes, of course, that stands to reason; I can readily understand no
ghost of the slightest financial instinct would have chosen me to come
to; I am all the more obliged for any chance at all, on any terms. It
is very encouraging to have you sit there; I like it. I think I will
try and do some work.’
‘Yes, I would,’ said the little Ghost, with alacrity.
The Author leaned back, and, clasping his hands behind his head, he
fixed his eyes on the little Ghost, and began:
‘It is to be a story, you know--a romance. _She_ is to be the central
figure--a splendid red-haired creature, with great instincts, primeval,
untrained, capacious; she is to _devour_ the world; she can’t wait for
experience; she hungers and thirsts for sensations; she is to _boom_
through the story--no lagging, no questioning; see?’
‘Yes,’ nodded the little Ghost.
‘And then,’ continued the Author, ‘she is to meet the hero; he is to be
Tradition, Culture, Development, Conservatism; and there will be, so to
speak, no one else in the world except these two forces, and the battle
royal will be between these two.’
‘Yes,’ nodded the little Ghost.
‘I think I will write that out before I go any further with the plot.’
‘I would,’ said the little Ghost.
‘Well, here goes,’ said the Author, drawing himself up to the table.
He wrote for some hours; his pen moved ceaselessly over the pages, and
from time to time he laid a sheet at the feet of the little Ghost.
The clock struck twelve, the clock struck one; the Author’s hair fell
lankly over his pale face; on and on went his pen. At two, he looked
up and saw the little Ghost sitting, all alert, on the cuff-box, with
his blue eyes wide open; he gave a bright little smile in answer to the
Author’s glance.
‘Why bless me! I had clean forgotten you! aren’t you tired?’ said the
Author.
‘Not in the least; I feel quite fresh.’
‘Upon my word, you look it; I believe you are going to be a tough
little chap, and will see me through. And now where will you sleep?’
‘Why, here, anywhere--I am not particular.’
‘Aren’t you hungry? you haven’t had anything to eat since you came. By
the way, what do you eat?’
‘Oh, I’m all right, don’t bother about me; I live very well on hope,
and we are supposed to supply that ourselves.’
‘That’s extremely lucky for you; I haven’t had a scrap of hope for a
month, and I’m afraid you’d starve if you depended on me.’
‘Thank you, that’s all right--good night.’
The Author slept heavily, all dressed as he was when he threw himself
down on the bed. The little Ghost took off his necktie and his little
boots, and, folding his coat carefully for a pillow, he too slept,
after adjusting the pen-wiper for a coverlid. At six o’clock the little
Ghost got up and rambled about the table for a while. He regulated
the loose sheets of manuscript and counted the pages. He looked
quite well in the morning light, and his step had the assurance and
measured quality that comes only to the prosperous. He carried his
left hand carelessly in his pocket, with his elbow slightly raised,
after the manner of the man of the world. He began to be restless
towards seven o’clock, and at half-past seven he took his breakfast,
very sparingly, off of his stock of hope, evidently considering the
possibility of a longer stay than he had anticipated when he first
got up. At eight o’clock, his face was full of anxiety, and he had
dropped his nonchalant air and had taken his hand out of his pocket. At
nine, his head was bent, and he paced to and fro from the inkstand to
the dictionary, with his hands clasped behind him. He looked old and
feeble. At ten, he had a slight fainting turn and had to sit down on
the cuff-box. His forehead was damp and he shivered; he was evidently
deeply disturbed, and he was a pitiful little object to look at.
Then the Author awoke, and, sitting up, called out: ‘Why, great
heavens! what is the matter, are you ill?’
‘Thank you, I do feel a little off this morning.’
‘Morning, is it? Why, I feel as if I had just dropped off; you haven’t
been drinking my ink, have you? You are all blue around the gills?’
The little Ghost was offended, but he did not answer except by a
reproachful look.
‘Oh, don’t play the lacrimoso role; I’ll be up in no time, and you must
remember I wrote a pile last night; just hear me read some of it. Why,
did I do all this? It reads better than I thought.’
‘Yes, it reads very well--_very well indeed_. I think I will go out
and take a stroll, and lunch at the club, and not write any more till
to-night; I do my best work at night.’
As the Author said this, he looked right at the Ghost; there was a
feeling in the room that somebody was justifying himself, but the
little Ghost said nothing. Then the Author made himself a cup of coffee
and freshened himself up, all the time not looking at the little Ghost.
Then he took his cane, and, going out, he nodded carelessly, and said:
‘Good-bye, old boy; I will be back in good time, don’t worry.’
All the way down the street the Author kept hearing the words: ‘I am
all the chance you’ve got--I am all the chance you’ve got,--I am all
the chance you’ve got.’
‘Hang it all,’ said he, ‘I might as well go back and grind; it will
please the little chap, and it don’t matter to anyone else. I don’t
suppose he is much of a critic--he’ll never know how bad the stuff is
that I wrote last night.’
So back he went. When the door opened he was shocked to see his little
Ghost of a chance apparently on the verge of dissolution. He lay across
the dictionary, where he had evidently thrown himself in despair; his
arm hung down over the edge of the book, and he was limp and almost
like a lifeless thing. He smiled a wan but forgiving smile on the
Author and then wearily composed himself, as if for death. The Author
bent his head over the little Ghost to see if he was still breathing.
The Ghost was alive, and he heard him whisper:
‘_Write, write, write!_’
Seizing his pen, the Author dashed ahead, hardly knowing what words
came; he knew that write he must to save his dear little Ghost of a
chance--his only little chance. By the time he had written one chapter
the Ghost was up and strutting around the table like a little king, but
the poor Author was in the depths of despair; he knew that every word
he was writing was trash; that nobody, even the most philanthropic of
editors, would ever take his story, and that starve he must. Still, the
little Ghost improved; he grew stout, he grew rosy, he even seemed to
be getting a fresh accession of yellow hair to cover his bald spot. At
last the Author spoke:
‘Little _fiend_,’ said he, ‘you fatten on my despair; you are nourished
on my misery; the vagaries of my tired brain are wine and bread to your
morbid taste. Why should I drain my brain to feed you, you _pigmy_ of
chance! you respectable little _vampire_! you masquerader in the form
of “my chance,” “my only chance!” Away with you, vanish, wither, be
gone! I will burn my words, even though you perish with the flame. I
will not be saved by such a chance, if the price of my life be this
unworthy work!’
And the Author thrust his manuscript into the fire. He turned,
thinking to see the Ghost wither and die before him; but instead of
that there was the queer little contradictory fellow dancing on the
table. He danced, he capered, he looked fairly fat; in truth he began
to puff with his exertions, and then he shouted out:
‘O you authors! O you strange creatures! You think you can kill me by
burning your manuscript; why, you are feeding me, you are pampering
me, and you yourself are improving in spite of yourself. Your chance
is great, your chance is sure, you will _write_ now; you will be a
success!’
And sure enough the next day the story was done. The Author went out
with it, knowing it to be good; it was a go. The Author’s hand rested
lightly in his trousers’ pocket, and he walked with the assurance of a
prosperous man. As he came back, he said to himself:
‘Now, I am going to say to that little Ghost chap: “Here, half of this
gold is yours, half is mine; remain with me, and we will be partners,
share and share alike.”’
But when he went into the room, the fat little Ghost had gone back to
the ‘Bureau of Chances,’ to be sent out again along with all the other
little Ghost Chances. I recognized him the other day sleeping in the
pigeonhole of the desk of a friend of mine.
[Illustration]
IN GRANADA.
‘Pepita,’ said I, ‘do tell me a story.’
‘Señora Maria Madalena, would you like to hear about Seraphita? She was
born in Granada. That was one hundred years ago.
‘She was born in a high place; her mother was of a great family, and
her father was great too, but he was very wild, and Seraphita was the
prettiest thing that ever was born in Granada; everybody said so, and
her mother used to think that the sun rose on the east side of her
little bed, and set on the west.
‘The days ran merrily, and the father felt so happy that he went all
the time to the bull-fights, and threw even money, yes, not only
cigars but real money, to the torreadors. And all was beautiful till
Seraphita was four months old; then she died. She had been very ill, so
ill that her father did not go to the bull-fights for one whole week,
and he paid for a great ceremony in the church, and everybody said,
“Now Seraphita will get well,” for he had paid more than one hundred
pieces of gold for prayers. But Seraphita died, and her mother had so
much heart-grief that she lost her wits. For one whole day she sat,
cold and still, without a tear, and then she cried aloud and began to
tear out handfuls of her smooth black hair, and it was a great pity,
for her hair was black and long, and glistened like satin--she was
called the Satin-haired. But she forgot how beautiful she was, and she
would not eat anything, or even sleep.
‘Two nights after Seraphita died, and was lying as white and beautiful
as an angel, with wax candles at her head and feet and with a white
flower in her hand, her mother went quietly into the room, and sent
the old nurse, who was watching over Seraphita, away. Then she closed
the door and threw herself on her knees, and prayed so hard that her
prayers could not get up to Heaven, for they were more like curses than
prayers,--and, Señora Maria Madalena, it is not good to pray like that;
one must not send up prayers that are not fit to go to Heaven, for then
Saint Peter shuts the gates of Heaven, and the prayers go wandering up
and down in the great spaces of air, where there is no one to answer
them.
‘The Devil, who is everywhere but in Heaven, came to her and asked,
with a very sweet voice--for he can use any voice he likes--“What is it
that Seraphita’s mother is praying for?”
‘“I want my child back; I want her in my arms that are so empty, and my
heart that aches so.”
‘And then the Devil told her--I do not know exactly how he told her,
but he made her know that he could give Seraphita back to her, just as
she had been, with her rosy cheeks, and her black eyes, and her pretty
black hair which was going to be like her mother’s; he could do this,
only he could not give her soul back--she must be always without a soul.
‘And Seraphita’s mother talked with the Devil, for her wits were gone
and she did not know right from wrong; and she promised him anything if
he would only give her baby back to her again, even without any soul.
And the Devil very politely said he did not want anything to be given
to him; he was glad to give the child back, so long as she did not ask
for the soul.
‘And then, while the mother looked at Seraphita, the pink came into the
baby’s cheeks and she smiled; and then, because her joy was so great,
the mother cried out loud, and her voice could be heard way down in the
street. Then everybody came running in to see what was the matter; and
the father was so happy he carried Seraphita again to the church and
they had another ceremony, and this time he paid even more gold, and
there was a great _festa_ in Granada.
‘You see, nobody but the mother knew that only Seraphita’s body was
there, that she hadn’t any soul and never could have one; only the
mother knew, and she could not be happy.
‘She grew very thin, and her smooth satin hair turned white on top,
just where the Devil had laid his hand; so she wore a veil, even in the
house, and she hid her eyes as if she was afraid, and she prayed day
and night. Nobody knew what she prayed, because she did not dare to
tell even her husband.
‘Bye and bye she grew so afraid and sad, because Seraphita somehow
didn’t seem to her any more like her own child; she was like a
beautiful wax doll; but she was not wax, and she looked just like
herself to everybody else; only to her mother she seemed strange, and
she could not get the warm love back into her heart, even though she
pressed Seraphita to her bosom night and day.
‘The little baby grew in spite of that, and she grew prettier and
prettier all the time. Everybody loved her except her mother, and that
was just what the Devil wanted.
‘The day Seraphita was one year old her mother could not bear it any
longer, and she went to her priest and confessed to him all about it;
and then very soon she died, because she had kept her secret so long
it had just burned her heart out.
‘After that--no one knew how it happened--but pretty soon everybody
began to whisper and look queerly at Seraphita when the nurse carried
her into the street; and her father seemed troubled, and he talked with
the priest and wanted to pay some more money to the Church; but they
wouldn’t have any more ceremonies for Seraphita, and the priests tried
to make the people stop talking; what they said was “_nonsense_.” But
it was not nonsense, and so they went on talking among themselves; and
they would take their own children out of the way when Seraphita was
old enough to play about.
‘So she grew up all alone except for her father and her nurse and the
priest who went to live in the house--which showed that the Church
thought there was something in it, else why should a priest go and
live in the house?
‘One day, when Seraphita was out walking, she came across some little
boys who were stoning a black kitten to kill it--for everybody knows
that black cats belong to the Devil. And Seraphita ran right in among
the flying stones, and not one of them hit her, for the Devil held his
hand between her and the stones, and she caught up the Devil’s kitten
and hugged it tight, while the stones fell at her feet, and the boys
cried out, “Devil’s brat! Devil’s cat!”’
‘Pepita,’ said I, ‘she seems to me to have been a very nice,
soft-hearted little girl.’
‘Oh, no! Señora Maria Madalena, you see black cats belong to the Devil,
and if she had had any soul she couldn’t have taken one in her arms.
‘She carried it home, and she used to feed it, and she had to hide it
away, because, of course, nobody wanted to have a Devil’s cat around,
and the cat would run and jump into Seraphita’s arms whenever she came
near; but it would fly like mad, and its hair would all stand on end,
when anyone else came around, which shows--does it not?--that something
was wrong. And another thing showed that all was not right with
Seraphita: the priest began to teach her, and she learned faster than
any child should. There was an evil spirit that whispered the words
into her ear, so that she did not have to study.
‘She had power over horses, too, and if she just put her lips to a
horse’s ear he would turn and rub his nose on her face. You see, horses
have no souls, and they knew that Seraphita hadn’t any.
‘And, besides that, she always looked very old and grave when anybody
was near; but when she was alone in the fields or in the woods she
would laugh out loud, and they could hear her talk with the birds, for
she knew bird-language; and she would lean over the water and talk to
herself, or to the fishes. Oh, it was true, she had no soul!’
‘Well, what became of her?’ I asked, as Pepita paused, to emphasize her
statement.
‘She grew up so beautiful that strangers would stop in the street and
look at her as she passed; but, of course, everybody soon found out all
about her, and then they would not look at her--at least they would not
look her in the eye, unless they had a charm on.’
‘Do you mean that she had the “evil eye”?’
‘Oh, yes! why, she could make anyone have bad luck just by looking at
them, and she could make flowers grow and blossom, and be more colors
than any other flowers. She knew she had the “evil eye,” for she never
went anywhere, or visited the sick or the poor, though she had plenty
of money. She used to send the priest with food or clothes. You see,
_she_ knew.’
‘And what became of poor little Seraphita?’
‘Why, you see, when she was about twenty years old she was very ill
again, and she lay in a trance for three days. The doctors wouldn’t go
near her, and her own old nurse had died, and they couldn’t get anyone
to take care of her, till finally the priest sent to the convent for
one of the Sisters. She was a very good woman, and she went to the
house, and, creeping on her hands and knees, so that the Devil could
not get hold of her, she went right into the room and prayed all night.
Her prayers went straight up to Heaven; and she prayed that Seraphita
might die, and that before she died her soul should be given back to
her.
‘And, Señora Maria Madalena, just as the sky began to grow pink in the
east, and the white mist blew across the vega, and the birds began to
call, what do you think happened?