"REST, REST, PERTURBÉD SPIRIT!"
I think it was because such lighter incidents as those that I have
described in the two preceding chapters were freely introduced among
more weighty happenings, and thus gave a certain measure of relief from
them, that we managed to fill out our term in the House on the Hill.
Absurd and impish as the general run of these performances was, there
was still an element of what I may almost call intimacy in them--a sort
of appeal, as it were, to look upon the whole thing as a joke; which,
while they caused us amazement, brought us no real alarm. Much as has
been attributed to the influence of fear, I believe curiosity to be the
stronger passion; and few days passed without a fillip being given to
our interest by some new absurdity, while events of graver suggestion
were few and far between.
I need not say that the affair which had been most sinister and
disquieting was the coming to my wife of the evident apparition of
Deeming. This visitation had been so awful and unearthly that by
tacit agreement we had not spoken of it since the afternoon of its
occurrence:--yet I had never been able to get it out of my mind, and
every day I spent in town was darkened by forebodings of what might
happen at home before my return. Each night as I came in sight of the
house I looked anxiously for the figure of my wife standing on the
veranda to welcome me, and each night I drew a breath of relief as I
saw in her serene and smiling face that my apprehensions had been vain;
and so I came by degrees to dismiss my fears in the conviction that
that uneasy spirit had been laid at last.
But this comforting assurance suddenly failed me, when, one evening
about two weeks after the ghost's first coming, I read in my wife's
eyes that it had appeared again. Yet, greatly to my relief, I saw no
fear in them, but, rather, an expression of pity. Her manner was quiet
and composed, but I was sure she had been weeping.
"Yes," she said, in reply to my anxious inquiries; "Deeming has been
here, and I have been crying. Oh, that poor tortured, despairing
soul!--he is in Hell, and one infinitely worse than that we were taught
to believe in; a Hell where conscience never sleeps, and where he
sees what he might have been--and now never can be! He frightened me
terribly at first, but I know he tried not to do so, and now I am glad
he came, for I believe I have helped him, although I cannot understand
how. I feel weak and faint, for I have been under a great strain, but
I shall be better now that you have come home--and I know, too, that I
shall never see him again. Come into my room, and I will tell you all
about it:"--and when I had done so, and had tried, with some success,
to quiet the agitation that, in spite of her words, still possessed
her, she told me the amazing story of her experience.
"It was about eleven o'clock this forenoon," she began, "and I was
alone in the house--in the kitchen. I had been airing the house, and
all the doors and windows were open, although the screens were in
place. All at once I heard the back gate creak as it always does when
it opens, and 'Schneider' and 'Tokio'" (such were the names of our two
dogs) "who were loose in the yard, barking at somebody. I supposed it
was the butcher or the grocery man and looked out the back door--and
just then the dogs came tearing by with their tails between their legs,
and disappeared around the corner of the house. The next instant I
saw a man standing just inside the gate. He was not looking at me,
but his eyes seemed to be following the flight of the dogs; then they
turned to meet mine, and I saw that it was Deeming. I shut the back
door instantly and locked it--then ran to the front door and fastened
_that_; I wanted to close and bolt the windows, too, but did not dare
do so, for I was afraid I might look out of any one of them and see
him. I prayed to God that he might go away, but he did not. I stood in
the hall and saw him move by outside the window of your room. By-and-by
he passed the dining-room window on the other side of me as I stood
there, having gone completely around the house. But he did not look in.
"I did not see anything more of him for some time, and I began to
think that he had given up trying to communicate with me, and had gone
away again. I finally went into the bedroom and peeped out into the
veranda. He was there, standing near and facing the door! He did not
seem to notice me, and I watched him for some time. He was dressed just
as he had been before, and looked the same; but I could see him much
more clearly than the first time, and if I had not known who it was, I
should have thought it was a living man.
"I don't know how it was, but as I stood watching him I found that I
wasn't afraid of him at all. He looked so sad and pitiful, and stood
there so patiently, that I began to feel as I might toward some poor
beggar; he seemed just like one, waiting for something to eat. Then I
thought how he had pleaded the other day for assistance, and how I had
turned him away--and although it was like death to face him again, I
went into the hall and opened the door.
"The screen door was closed and locked, and we looked at each other
through it. I could see every detail of the figure's face and dress as
it stood there in the bright sunlight:--it was within three feet of me,
and it was Deeming's without a shadow of a doubt.
"I don't know how long I stood there. I seemed to be in another world,
and in a strange atmosphere which he may have brought with him. I had
to make a strong effort, but finally succeeded in seeing and thinking
clearly, and as he only looked appealingly at me and seemed not to be
able to say anything, I was the first to speak.
"'I know who you are, this time,' I said. 'I told you never to come
here again. Why have you done so?'
"'Madame,' he replied, 'I have come for help.'
"'I told you the other day I could do nothing for you,' I said.
"'But you can, if you will,' he answered, 'and there is nobody else I
can reach. Don't be afraid of me--I won't hurt you. I need some one to
show me Christian charity, and I thought you were kind and would help
me.'"
"'Christian charity!'" I exclaimed, interrupting the recital for the
first time: "was _that_ what he said?"
"Those were his exact words," said my wife; "and it seemed almost
blasphemy for such a creature to use them."
"They seem to me," I commented, "more like one of those stock phrases
of which nearly every man has some, of one sort or another. Do you
remember, in the letter Deeming wrote to you from the jail when you
could not induce Miss Rounsfell to come to see him, how he said he was
sorry you did not find her 'as Christianlike as yourself?' It may be
a small point, but this appeal to your 'Christian charity' seems to
confirm your belief that it was the apparition of Deeming that made it
to you to-day. But what happened then?"
"Well," said she, taking up the thread of her story, "while he was
saying this he kept his eyes on mine--great, pleading eyes like those
of a dog:--they made me think he was trying to say things for which he
could not find words, and--I don't know why--I began to feel sorry for
him.
"'I don't understand at all what you mean,' I said. 'Your awful crimes
horrify me, and I can hardly bear to look at you. Why should you
distress me as you do?'
"'I don't want to distress you,' he replied, 'but I must get out of
this horrible place!'
"'What do you mean by "this horrible place"? I cannot understand you.'
"'I can't make you understand,' he said. 'They won't let me.' I don't
know what he meant by 'they,' but I thought it was some beings that
controlled him, though I could see nothing. Then he went on in a long,
confused talk which I could only partly follow.
"The substance of what he said was this, as nearly as I could gather
it. His body was buried in quicklime in a criminal's unmarked grave;
I think he said under the wall of the jail, but of this I am not
sure--and as long as a trace of it remained he was tied down to the
scenes of his crime and punishment. If he could only find some one who
would pity him, and show it by 'an act of Christian charity'--he used
the expression again--his term of suffering here would be shortened,
and he could 'go on;' that was the way he put it, although he did not
seem to know what it meant. His talk was vague and rambling, and seemed
to me very incoherent; but his distress was plain enough, and when he
stopped speaking (which was not for some time, for he kept going back
and repeating as if he were trying to make his meaning clearer) I had
lost all feeling except that here was a creature in great trouble, and
that I ought to help him if I could.
"When he had finished I asked him how I could show him the 'Christian
charity' he had spoken about.
"'By giving me something,' he replied, 'and being sorry for me when you
give it.'
"'I _am_ sorry for you,' I said. 'Isn't that enough?'
"'No,' he answered, 'that isn't enough. You might have done it if you
had bought the soap from me the other day.'
"'So it is money you want?' I asked.
"'Yes,' he said, 'money will do, or anything else that you value.'
"'Will you stay where you are until I can get some?' I asked:--and he
said, yes, he would stay where he was.
"So I went into my room and took some money from my purse, and went
back and showed it to him; there was a half-crown, a shilling and some
coppers--there they are, on the dressing table beside you."
"So you did not give them to him, after all?" I inquired, taking up the
coins and examining them.
"Oh, yes, I did," replied my wife; "and that is the strangest part of
the whole thing.
"As I said, I showed him the money and asked him if that would do; and
he said it would.
"Then I said: 'I am not going to open this door. How can I give these
coins to you?'
"'You don't need to open it,' he answered. 'There is a hat rack there
behind you, with a marble shelf in it--put them on that shelf.'
"I stepped back to the hat rack and put the money on the shelf,
watching him all the time. I glanced at the coins an instant as I laid
them down, and when I looked at the door again there was nobody there.
I instantly turned to the hat rack again, but the shelf was bare--the
coins had disappeared, too!
"I rushed to the door to unlock it and run into the street, for I
thought Deeming had got into the house:--but just as I had my hand on
the key I heard his voice in front of me.
"'Don't be afraid,' the voice said. 'I haven't moved.'
"'But how did you get the money?' I asked.
"'You wouldn't understand if I should tell you,' replied the voice.
"'But I can't see you!' I exclaimed.
"'No,' said the voice, 'and you never will again. I have gone on.'
"'But you are not going away with my money, are you?' I asked. 'Do you
need it now?'
"'No,' the voice replied, 'I do not need it. You gave it to me because
you pitied me--I have no more use for it.'
"'Can you give it back to me?' I asked.
"'I _have_ given it back,' said the voice. 'Look on the hat rack.'
"I heard something jingle behind me, and as I turned around I saw the
coins all lying on the shelf again."
* * * * *
The conclusion of this prodigious history found me in a state very
nearly approaching stupefaction. It was not so much the facts
themselves which it embodied as the suggestions they inspired that
appalled me, and the glimpse they seemed to afford of mysteries the
human race has for ages shrinkingly guessed at, chilled me to the
marrow of my bones. "Can such things be?" was the question I asked
myself again and again as I struggled to regain my composure:--and
although this experience seemed a natural and fitting sequence in the
drama that had been enacted in that house under my own eyes, I am free
to say I could not on the instant credit it.
My wife detected my hesitation at once, and said:
"I see you cannot believe what I have told you, and I do not wonder at
it:--but it is true, for all that."
"I know you think so," I replied; "and in view of the very many other
strange events you have taken part in--and I with you in a number of
them--I ought to have no doubts. But this is the most staggering thing
I ever heard of. Are you sure you were not dreaming?"
"Well," she said, with a laugh, "I am not in the habit of dreaming at
eleven o'clock on a bright, sunny morning, and when I have the care of
the house on my hands. And then, the dogs:--do you think _they_ were
dreaming, too?"
"Ah, yes!" I exclaimed; "what about the dogs?"
"I told you," she replied, "how they ran to the gate, barking, and then
suddenly turned tail and rushed away in a panic as soon as they saw
what was there. When Deeming had gone, I went out to look after them,
but for a long time I could not find them. I called and I coaxed, but
to no purpose. Finally I discovered them out in the farthest corner of
the paddock, under the thick bushes, crowded together in a heap, and
trembling as though they had been whipped. I had to crawl in and drag
them out, but I couldn't induce them to come near the house; at last I
had to carry them in, and all the afternoon they have stuck close to me
as though they felt the need of protection. It is only half an hour ago
that I got them into their kennels and chained them up. You had better
go out and see them."
I did so, and found one kennel empty, and both dogs lying close
together (as the length of their chains allowed them to do) in the
straw of the other. I had never seen them do this before, since each
was very jealous of intrusion by the other upon his quarters, and
I was impressed by the circumstance. The poor brutes still showed
unmistakable evidences of terror, whimpered and whined and licked my
hand as I petted them, and set up a concerted and agonized howl of
protest when I left them. There was no doubt whatever that they had
been horribly frightened--if not by the ghost of Deeming, by what?--it
was certainly no merely physical agitation that their actions showed.