had not peeped in and vanished as it used to do. He fell asleep too
quickly now, almost before Jackman reached the hall, and long before
the fire began to die. Also, the dogs and birds upon the curtains
always matched the trees exactly, and he won the curtain game quite
easily; there was never a dog or bird too many; the curtain never
stirred. It had been thus ever since his talk with Mother and Father.
And so he came to make a second discovery: His parents did not really
believe in his Figure. She kept away on that account. They doubted
her; she hid. Here was still another incentive to go and find her
out. He ached for her, she was so kind, she gave herself so much
trouble--just for his little self in the big and lonely bedroom. Yet
his parents spoke of her as though she were of no account. He longed
to see her, face to face, and tell her that _he_ believed in her and
loved her. For he was positive she would like to hear it. She cared.
Though he had fallen asleep of late too quickly for him to see her
flash in at the door, he had known nicer dreams than ever in his life
before--travelling dreams. And it was she who sent them. More--he was
sure she took him out with her.
One evening, in the dusk of a March day, his opportunity came; and only
just in time, for his brother Jack was expected home from school on the
morrow, and with Jack in the other bed, no Figure would ever care to
show itself. Also it was Easter, and after Easter, though Tim was not
aware of it at the time, he was to say good-bye finally to governesses
and become a day-boarder at a preparatory school for Wellington. The
opportunity offered itself so naturally, moreover, that Tim took it
without hesitation. It never occurred to him to question, much less to
refuse it. The thing was obviously meant to be. For he found himself
unexpectedly in front of a green baize door; and the green baize door
was--swinging! Somebody, therefore, had just passed through it.
It had come about in this wise. Father, away in Scotland, at
Inglemuir, the shooting place, was expected back next morning; Mother
had driven over to the church upon some Easter business or other; and
the governess had been allowed her holiday at home in France. Tim,
therefore, had the run of the house, and in the hour between tea and
bed-time he made good use of it. Fully able to defy such second-rate
obstacles as nurses and butlers, he explored all manner of forbidden
places with ardent thoroughness, arriving finally in the sacred
precincts of his father's study. This wonderful room was the very
heart and centre of the whole big house; he had been birched here long
ago; here, too, his father had told him with a grave yet smiling face:
"You've got a new companion, Tim, a little sister; you must be very
kind to her." Also, it was the place where all the money was kept. What
he called "father's jolly smell" was strong in it--papers, tobacco,
books, flavoured by hunting crops and gunpowder.
At first he felt awed, standing motionless just inside the door;
but presently, recovering equilibrium, he moved cautiously on tiptoe
towards the gigantic desk where important papers were piled in untidy
patches. These he did not touch; but beside them his quick eye noted
the jagged piece of iron shell his father brought home from his Crimean
campaign and now used as a letter-weight. It was difficult to lift,
however. He climbed into the comfortable chair and swung round and
round. It was a swivel-chair, and he sank down among the cushions
in it, staring at the strange things on the great desk before him,
as if fascinated. Next he turned away and saw the stick-rack in the
corner--this, he knew, he was allowed to touch. He had played with
these sticks before. There were twenty, perhaps, all told, with curious
carved handles, brought from every corner of the world; many of them
cut by his father's own hand in queer and distant places. And, among
them, Tim fixed his eye upon a cane with an ivory handle, a slender,
polished cane that he had always coveted tremendously. It was the kind
he meant to use when he was a man. It bent, it quivered, and when he
swished it through the air it trembled like a riding-whip, and made
a whistling noise. Yet it was very strong in spite of its elastic
qualities. A family treasure, it was also an old-fashioned relic; it
had been his grandfather's walking stick. Something of another century
clung visibly about it still. It had dignity and grace and leisure in
its very aspect. And it suddenly occurred to him: "How grandpapa must
miss it! Wouldn't he just love to have it back again!"
How it happened exactly, Tim did not know, but a few minutes later he
found himself walking about the deserted halls and passages of the
house with the air of an elderly gentleman of a hundred years ago,
proud as a courtier, flourishing the stick like an Eighteenth Century
dandy in the Mall. That the cane reached to his shoulder made no
difference; he held it accordingly, swaggering on his way. He was off
upon an adventure. He dived down through the byways of the Other Wing,
inside himself, as though the stick transported him to the days of the
old gentleman who had used it in another century.
It may seem strange to those who dwell in smaller houses, but in this
rambling Elizabethan mansion there were whole sections that, even to
Tim, were strange and unfamiliar. In his mind the map of the Other
Wing was clearer by far than the geography of the part he travelled
daily. He came to passages and dim-lit halls, long corridors of stone
beyond the Picture Gallery; narrow, wainscoted connecting-channels with
four steps down and a little later two steps up; deserted chambers
with arches guarding them--all hung with the soft March twilight and
all bewilderingly unrecognised. With a sense of adventure born of
naughtiness he went carelessly along, farther and farther into the
heart of this unfamiliar country, swinging the cane, one thumb stuck
into the arm-pit of his blue serge suit, whistling softly to himself,
excited yet keenly on the alert--and suddenly found himself opposite a
door that checked all further advance. It was a green baize door. And
it was swinging.
He stopped abruptly, facing it. He stared, he gripped his cane more
tightly, he held his breath. "The Other Wing!" he gasped in a swallowed
whisper. It was an entrance, but an entrance he had never seen before.
He thought he knew every door by heart; but this one was new. He stood
motionless for several minutes, watching it; the door had two halves,
but one half only was swinging, each swing shorter than the one before;
he heard the little puffs of air it made; it settled finally, the last
movements very short and rapid; it stopped. And the boy's heart, after
similar rapid strokes, stopped also--for a moment.
"Some one's just gone through," he gulped. And even as he said it he
knew who the some one was. The conviction just dropped into him. "It's
Grandfather; he knows I've got his stick. He wants it!" On the heels of
this flashed instantly another amazing certainty. "He sleeps in there.
He's having dreams. That's what being dead means."
His first impulse, then, took the form of, "I must let Father know;
it'll make him burst for joy"; but his second was for himself--to
finish his adventure. And it was this, naturally enough, that gained
the day. He could tell his father later. His first duty was plainly to
go through the door into the Other Wing. He must give the stick back to
its owner. He must _hand_ it back.
The test of will and character came now. Tim had imagination, and so
knew the meaning of fear; but there was nothing craven in him. He
could howl and scream and stamp like any other person of his age when
the occasion called for such behaviour, but such occasions were due
to temper roused by a thwarted will, and the histrionics were half
"pretended" to produce a calculated effect. There was no one to thwart
his will at present. He also knew how to be afraid of Nothing, to be
afraid without ostensible cause, that is--which was merely "nerves." He
could have "the shudders" with the best of them.
But, when a real thing faced him, Tim's character emerged to meet it.
He would clench his hands, brace his muscles, set his teeth--and wish
to heaven he was bigger. But he would not flinch. Being imaginative,
he lived the worst a dozen times before it happened, yet in the final
crash he stood up like a man. He had that highest pluck--the courage
of a sensitive temperament. And at this particular juncture, somewhat
ticklish for a boy of eight or nine, it did not fail him. He lifted the
cane and pushed the swinging door wide open. Then he walked through
it--into the Other Wing.
3
The green baize door swung to behind him; he was even sufficiently
master of himself to turn and close it with a steady hand, because he
did not care to hear the series of muffled thuds its lessening swings
would cause. But he realised clearly his position, knew he was doing a
tremendous thing.
Holding the cane between fingers very tightly clenched, he advanced
bravely along the corridor that stretched before him. And all fear left
him from that moment, replaced, it seemed, by a mild and exquisite
surprise. His footsteps made no sound, he walked on air; instead of
darkness, or the twilight he expected, a diffused and gentle light that
seemed like the silver on the lawn when a half-moon sails a cloudless
sky, lay everywhere. He knew his way, moreover, knew exactly where he
was and whither he was going. The corridor was as familiar to him as
the floor of his own bedroom; he recognised the shape and length of
it; it agreed exactly with the map he had constructed long ago. Though
he had never, to the best of his knowledge, entered it before, he knew
with intimacy its every detail.
And thus the surprise he felt was mild and far from disconcerting.
"I'm here again!" was the kind of thought he had. It was _how_ he
got here that caused the faint surprise, apparently. He no longer
swaggered, however, but walked carefully, and half on tiptoe, holding
the ivory handle of the cane with a kind of affectionate respect. And
as he advanced, the light closed softly up behind him, obliterating the
way by which he had come. But this he did not know, because he did not
look behind him. He only looked in front, where the corridor stretched
its silvery length towards the great chamber where he knew the cane
must be surrendered. The person who had preceded him down this ancient
corridor, passing through the green baize door just before he reached
it, this person, his father's father, now stood in that great chamber,
waiting to receive his own. Tim knew it as surely as he knew he
breathed. At the far end he even made out the larger patch of silvery
light which marked its gaping doorway.
There was another thing he knew as well--that this corridor he moved
along between rooms with fast-closed doors, was the Nightmare Corridor;
often and often he had traversed it; each room was occupied. "This
is the Nightmare Passage," he whispered to himself, "but I know the
Ruler--it doesn't matter. None of them can get out or do anything."
He heard them, none the less, inside, as he passed by; he heard them
scratching to get out. The feeling of security made him reckless; he
took unnecessary risks; he brushed the panels as he passed. And the
love of keen sensation for its own sake, the desire to feel "an awful
thrill," tempted him once so sharply that he raised his stick and poked
a fast-shut door with it!
He was not prepared for the result, but he gained the sensation and
the thrill. For the door opened with instant swiftness half an inch, a
hand emerged, caught the stick and tried to draw it in. Tim sprang back
as if he had been struck. He pulled at the ivory handle with all his
strength, but his strength was less than nothing. He tried to shout,
but his voice had gone. A terror of the moon came over him, for he was
unable to loosen his hold of the handle; his fingers had become a part
of it. An appalling weakness turned him helpless. He was dragged inch
by inch towards the fearful door. The end of the stick was already
through the narrow, crack. He could not see the hand that pulled, but
he knew it was terrific. He understood now why the world was strange,
why horses galloped furiously, and why trains whistled as they raced
through stations. All the comedy and terror of nightmare gripped his
heart with pincers made of ice. The disproportion was abominable. The
final collapse rushed over him when, without a sign of warning, the
door slammed silently, and between the jamb and the wall the cane was
crushed as flat as if it were a bulrush. So irresistible was the force
behind the door that the solid stick just went flat as a stalk of a
bulrush.
He looked at it. It _was_ a bulrush.
He did not laugh; the absurdity was so distressingly unnatural. The
horror of finding a bulrush where he had expected a polished cane--this
hideous and appalling detail held the nameless horror of the nightmare.
It betrayed him utterly. Why had he not always known really that the
stick was not a stick, but a thin and hollow reed...?
Then the cane was safely in his hand, unbroken. He stood looking at it.
The Nightmare was in full swing. He heard another door opening behind
his back, a door he had not touched. There was just time to see a hand
thrusting and waving dreadfully, familiarly, at him through the narrow
crack--just time to realise that this was another Nightmare acting
in atrocious concert with the first, when he saw closely beside him,
towering to the ceiling, the protective, kindly Figure that visited his
bedroom. In the turning movement he made to meet the attack, he became
aware of her. And his terror passed. It was a nightmare terror merely.
The infinite horror vanished. Only the comedy remained. He smiled.
He saw her dimly only, she was so vast, but he saw her, the Ruler of
the Other Wing at last, and knew that he was safe again. He gazed with
a tremendous love and wonder, trying to see her clearly; but the face
was hidden far aloft and seemed to melt into the sky beyond the roof.
He discerned that she was larger than the Night, only far, far softer,
with wings that folded above him more tenderly even than his mother's
arms; that there were points of light like stars among the feathers,
and that she was vast enough to cover millions and millions of people
all at once. Moreover, she did not fade or go, so far as he could see,
but spread herself in such a way that he lost sight of her. She spread
over the entire Wing....
And Tim remembered that this was all quite natural really. He had often
and often been down this corridor before; the Nightmare Corridor was
no new experience; it had to be faced as usual. Once knowing what hid
inside the rooms, he was bound to tempt them out. They drew, enticed,
attracted him; this was their power. It was their special strength that
they could suck him helplessly towards them, and that he was obliged to
go. He understood exactly why he was tempted to tap with the cane upon
their awful doors, but, having done so, he had accepted the challenge
and could now continue his journey quietly and safely. The Ruler of the
Other Wing had taken him in charge.
A delicious sense of carelessness came on him. There was softness as of
water in the solid things about him, nothing that could hurt or bruise.
Holding the cane firmly by its ivory handle, he went forward along the
corridor, walking as on air.
The end was quickly reached: He stood upon the threshold of the
mighty chamber where he knew the owner of the cane was waiting; the
long corridor lay behind him, in front he saw the spacious dimensions
of a lofty hall that gave him the feeling of being in the Crystal
Palace, Euston Station, or St. Paul's. High, narrow windows, cut deeply
into the wall, stood in a row upon the other side; an enormous open
fireplace of burning logs was on his right; thick tapestries hung from
the ceiling to the floor of stone; and in the centre of the chamber
was a massive table of dark, shining wood, great chairs with carved
stiff backs set here and there beside it. And in the biggest of these
throne-like chairs there sat a figure looking at him gravely--the
figure of an old, old man.
Yet there was no surprise in the boy's fast-beating heart; there was
a thrill of pleasure and excitement only, a feeling of satisfaction.
He had known quite well the figure would be there, known also it would
look like this exactly. He stepped forward on to the floor of stone
without a trace of fear or trembling, holding the precious cane in two
hands now before him, as though to present it to its owner. He felt
proud and pleased. He had run risks for this.
And the figure rose quietly to meet him, advancing in a stately
manner over the hard stone floor. The eyes looked gravely, sweetly
down at him, the aquiline nose stood out. Tim knew him perfectly: the
knee-breeches of shining satin, the gleaming buckles on the shoes, the
neat dark stockings, the lace and ruffles about neck and wrists, the
coloured waistcoat opening so widely--all the details of the picture
over father's mantelpiece, where it hung between two Crimean bayonets,
were reproduced in life before his eyes at last. Only the polished cane
with the ivory handle was not there.
Tim went three steps nearer to the advancing figure and held out both
his hands with the cane laid crosswise on them.
"I've brought it, Grandfather," he said, in a faint but clear and
steady tone; "here it is."
And the other stooped a little, put out three fingers half concealed
by falling lace, and took it by the ivory handle. He made a courtly bow
to Tim. He smiled, but though there was pleasure, it was a grave, sad
smile. He spoke then: the voice was slow and very deep. There was a
delicate softness in it, the suave politeness of an older day.
"Thank you," he said; "I value it. It was given to me by my
grandfather. I forgot it when I----" His voice grew indistinct a little.
"Yes?" said Tim.
"When I--left," the old gentleman repeated.
"Oh," said Tim, thinking how beautiful and kind the gracious figure was.
The old man ran his slender fingers carefully along the cane, feeling
the polished surface with satisfaction. He lingered specially over the
smoothness of the ivory handle. He was evidently very pleased.
"I was not quite myself--er--at the moment," he went on gently; "my
memory failed me somewhat." He sighed, as though an immense relief was
in him.
"_I_ forget things, too--sometimes," Tim mentioned sympathetically.
He simply loved his grandfather. He hoped--for a moment--he would
be lifted up and kissed. "I'm _awfully_ glad I brought it," he
faltered--"that you've got it again."
The other turned his kind grey eyes upon him; the smile on his face was
full of gratitude as he looked down.
"Thank you, my boy. I am truly and deeply indebted to you. You courted
danger for my sake. Others have tried before, but the Nightmare
Passage--er----" He broke off. He tapped the stick firmly on the stone
flooring, as though to test it. Bending a trifle, he put his weight
upon it. "Ah!" he exclaimed with a short sigh of relief, "I can now----"
His voice again grew indistinct; Tim did not catch the words.
"Yes?" he asked again, aware for the first time that a touch of awe was
in his heart.
"--get about again," the other continued very low. "Without my cane,"
he added, the voice failing with each word the old lips uttered, "I
could not ... possibly ... allow myself ... to be seen. It was indeed
... deplorable ... unpardonable of me ... to forget in such a way.
Zounds, sir...! I--I ..."
His voice sank away suddenly into a sound of wind. He straightened up,
tapping the iron ferrule of his cane on the stones in a series of loud
knocks. Tim felt a strange sensation creep into his legs. The queer
words frightened him a little.
The old man took a step towards him. He still smiled, but there was
a new meaning in the smile. A sudden earnestness had replaced the
courtly, leisurely manner. The next words seemed to blow down upon the
boy from above, as though a cold wind brought them from the sky outside.
Yet the words, he knew, were kindly meant, and very sensible. It was
only the abrupt change that startled him. Grandfather, after all, was
but a man! The distant sound recalled something in him to that outside
world from which the cold wind blew.
"My eternal thanks to you," he heard, while the voice and face and
figure seemed to withdraw deeper and deeper into the heart of the
mighty chamber. "I shall not forget your kindness and your courage. It
is a debt I can, fortunately, one day repay.... But now you had best
return and with dispatch. For your head and arm lie heavily on the
table, the documents are scattered, there is a cushion fallen ... and
my son is in the house.... Farewell! You had best leave me quickly.
See! _She_ stands behind you, waiting. Go with her! Go now...!"
The entire scene had vanished even before the final words were uttered.
Tim felt empty space about him. A vast, shadowy Figure bore him through
it as with mighty wings. He flew, he rushed, he remembered nothing
more--until he heard another voice and felt a heavy hand upon his
shoulder.
"Tim, you rascal! What are you doing in my study? And in the dark,
like this!"
He looked up into his father's face without a word. He felt dazed. The
next minute his father had caught him up and kissed him.
"Ragamuffin! How did you guess I was coming back to-night?" He shook
him playfully and kissed his tumbling hair. "And you've been asleep,
too, into the bargain. Well--how's everything at home--eh? Jack's
coming back from school to-morrow, you know, and ..."
4
Jack came home, indeed, the following day, and when the Easter holidays
were over, the governess stayed abroad and Tim went off to adventures
of another kind in the preparatory school for Wellington. Life slipped
rapidly along with him; he grew into a man; his mother and his father
died; Jack followed them within a little space; Tim inherited, married,
settled down into his great possessions--and opened up the Other
Wing. The dreams of imaginative boyhood all had faded; perhaps he had
merely put them away, or perhaps he had forgotten them. At any rate,
he never spoke of such things now, and when his Irish wife mentioned
her belief that the old country house possessed a family ghost, even
declaring that she had met an Eighteenth Century figure of a man in
the corridors, "an old, old man who bends down upon a stick"--Tim only
laughed and said:
"That's as it ought to be! And if these awful land-taxes force us to
sell some day, a respectable ghost will increase the market value."
But one night he woke and heard a tapping on the floor. He sat up in
bed and listened. There was a chilly feeling down his back. Belief
had long since gone out of him; he felt uncannily afraid. The sound
came nearer and nearer; there were light footsteps with it. The door
opened--it opened a little wider, that is, for it already stood
ajar--and there upon the threshold stood a figure that it seemed he
knew. He saw the face as with all the vivid sharpness of reality.
There was a smile upon it, but a smile of warning and alarm. The arm
was raised. Tim saw the slender hand, lace falling down upon the long,
thin fingers, and in them, tightly gripped, a polished cane. Shaking
the cane twice to and fro in the air, the face thrust forward, spoke
certain words, and--vanished. But the words were inaudible; for, though
the lips distinctly moved, no sound, apparently, came from them.
And Tim sprang out of bed. The room was full of darkness. He turned the
light on. The door, he saw, was shut as usual. He had, of course, been
dreaming. But he noticed a curious odour in the air. He sniffed it once
or twice--then grasped the truth. It was a smell of burning!
Fortunately, he awoke just in time....
He was acclaimed a hero for his promptitude. After many days, when
the damage was repaired, and nerves had settled down once more into
the calm routine of country life, he told the story to his wife--the
entire story. He told the adventure of his imaginative boyhood with
it. She asked to see the old family cane. And it was this request of
hers that brought back to memory a detail Tim had entirely forgotten
all these years. He remembered it suddenly again--the loss of the cane,
the hubbub his father kicked up about it, the endless, futile search.
For the stick had never been found, and Tim, who was questioned very
closely concerning it, swore with all his might that he had not the
smallest notion where it was. Which was, of course, the truth.
VII
THE OCCUPANT OF THE ROOM