THE GHOST
As soon as she had reached her room Gwendolen Scott sat down seriously
by the little writing-table. Here was the paper and here was the pen,
but the composition of the letter to the Warden was not even projected
in her mind. The thoughts would not come.
"Dear Dr. Middleton," Gwen began with complete satisfaction. That was
all right. After some thought she went on. "Mother asks me to give you
her letter!" No, of course, that wouldn't do. Her mother wouldn't like
him to know that she ordered the letter to be shown to him. Everything
on the slip of paper was secret. It was not the first time that Gwen had
received private slips of paper.
Gwen was obliged to tear up the sheet and begin again: "Dear Dr.
Middleton,"----
Now what would she say? It would take her all night. Of course, Louise
looked in at the door and muttered something volubly.
"I can manage myself," called out Gwen from her table. "I'm not ready,
and shan't be for hours."
Louise went away. Then it occurred to Gwen that she ought to have asked
Louise to come back again in a few minutes, and take the letter. She
really must try and get the letter written. So putting all the
determination she was capable of into a supreme effort, she began: "I
hope mother won't mind my showing you this letter." Gwen had heard her
mother often say with complete self-satisfaction: "Only a fool is afraid
to tell a useful lie, but only a fool tells one that isn't necessary!"
Indeed, Lady Belinda thought the second half of her maxim a bit clever,
a bit penetrating, and Gwen had listened to it smiling and feeling that
some reflected glory from her mother's wit was falling upon her, because
she understood how clever it was. Now the implied untruth that Gwen was
putting upon paper seemed to her very useful, and it looked satisfactory
when written.
She went on: "I hope it wasn't wrong of me to tell what you said. You
didn't say tell, but I didn't know what to do, as I am afraid to speak
if you don't speak to me. You are so awfully, awfully kind that I know I
oughtn't to be afraid, but I am. Do forgive stupid little me, and be
kind again to
"Your solotory little
"GWENDOLEN SCOTT."
The spelling of "solitary" had caused Gwen much mental strain, and even
when the intellectual conflict was over and the word written, it did not
look quite right. Why had she not said "lonely"? But that, too, had its
difficulties.
However, the letter was now finished. Louise had taken her at her word
and had not returned. Gwen looked at her watch. It was past a quarter to
eleven. At this hour she knew she mustn't ring the bell for a servant.
She could not search for Louise, she would be in Lady Dashwood's room.
She must take the letter herself to the library. She put the letter into
an envelope and addressed it to Dr. Middleton. Then she added her
mother's letter and sealed the whole.
Then she peeped out of her door and listened! All the lights were full
on and there was no sound of any one moving.
The Warden very likely hadn't yet returned. She would try and find out.
She slipped quietly down the steps, and with her feet on the thick
carpeted landing she waited. She could see that the hall below was
brightly lighted, and all was still. She listened intently outside the
drawing-room door. Not a sound. She might have time--if he really hadn't
arrived.
She fled across the head of the staircase and was at the door of the
library in a second of time. There she paused. No, there was no sound
behind her! No one was coming upstairs! No one was opening the front
door or moving in the hall! But it was just possible that he had already
arrived and was sitting in the library. He might be sitting there--and
looking severe! That would be alarming! Though--and here Gwen suddenly
decided that for all his severity she infinitely preferred his
appearance to that of a man like Mr. Boreham--Mr. Boreham's beard was
surely the limit! She listened at the door. She laid her cheek against
it and listened. No sound! The whole house illuminated and yet silent!
There was something strange about it! She would peep in and if there was
no light within--except, of course, firelight--she would know instantly
that the Warden wasn't there. It would only take her a flash of a minute
to run in, throw the letter down on the desk, and fly for all she was
worth.
She turned the handle of the door slowly and noiselessly, and pushed
ever so little. The door opened just an inch or two and
disclosed--darkness! Except for a glimmer--just a faint glimmer of
light!
He could not have come in, he could not possibly be there, and yet Gwen
had a curious impression that the room was not empty. But empty it must
be. She pushed the door quietly open and peeped in. The fire was burning
on the hearth in solemn silence, a cavernous red. There was nobody in
the room, and yet, as Gwen stole in and passed the projecting book-case
opposite the door, against which she had stumbled that evening of
evenings, she felt that she was not alone. It was a strange unpleasant
feeling. There she was standing in the full space of that shadowy room.
Books, books were everywhere--books that seemed to her keeping secrets
in their pages and purposely not saying anything. The room was too long,
too full of dead things--like books--too full of shadows. The heavy
curtains looked black, the desk, its chair standing with its back to the
fire--had a look of expecting to be occupied and waiting. She would have
liked to have thrown the letter on to the desk instead of having to
cross the few feet that separated her from the desk. The silence of the
room was alarming! Something seemed to be ready to jump at her! Was
something in the room? Gwen made a dash for the desk and threw down the
letter. As she did so, a sudden thrill passed up her spine and stiffened
her hair. She was _not_ alone! There _was_ somebody in the room, a
shadow, an outline, at the far end of the room against one of the
curtains--a man, a strange figure, looking straight at her! He was
standing, bending forward but motionless against the curtain, and
staring with eyes that had no life in them--at her!
Gwen gave a piercing scream and rushed blindly for the door. She dashed
against the projecting book-case, striking her head with some violence.
She tried to cry for help, but could not, the room swam in her vision.
She struck out her arms to shield herself, and as she did so she felt
rather than heard some one coming to her rescue, some one who flashed on
the lights--and she flung herself into protecting arms.
"It's all right, it's all right," said the Warden. "What made you cry
out? Don't be frightened, child!" and he half led, half carried her
towards a chair near the fire.
"No, no!" sobbed Gwen, shrilly. "Not here--no, take me away--away
from----"
"From what?" asked Lady Dashwood quietly, at her elbow. "What is the
matter, Gwen? You mustn't scream for nothing--what has frightened you?"
Gwen groaned aloud and hid her face in the Warden's arm.
"Something in this room has frightened you?" he asked.
Gwen sobbed assent.
"There is nothing in this room," said Lady Dashwood. "Put her on the
chair, Jim. She must tell us what it is she is afraid of. Come, Gwen!"
Although Gwendolen submitted to the commanding voice of Lady Dashwood
and allowed herself to be placed in the chair, she still grasped the
Warden's arm and hid her face in it.
"What frightened you, Gwen?" asked Lady Dashwood. "No harm can come to
you--we are by you. Pull yourself together and speak plainly and
quietly."
Gwen uttered some half-incoherent sounds--one only being intelligible to
the two who were bending over her.
"A man!" said the Warden, glancing round with surprise.
"No man is in the room," said Lady Dashwood. "Did he go out? Did you see
him go out?"
Gwen raised her face slightly.
"No. At the end there--looking!" and again she burst into uncontrollable
sobs.
The Warden released his arm and walked to the farther end of the room,
and Gwen grasped Lady Dashwood's arm and clung to her. The two women
could hear the Warden as he walked across to the farther end of the
room.
Gwen dared not look, but Lady Dashwood turned her head, supporting the
girl's head as she did so on her shoulder.
The Warden had reached the window. He opened the curtains and looked
behind them, then he pulled one sharply back, and into the lighted room
came a flood of pale moonlight, and through the chequered window panes
could be seen the moon herself riding full above a slowly drifting mass
of cloud.
"There is nothing in the room. If there were we should see it," said
Lady Dashwood quietly, and she turned the girl's face towards the
moonlight. "Look for yourself, Gwen. Your fears are quite foolish, my
dear, and you must try and control them."
So peremptory was Lady Dashwood's voice that the girl, still resting her
head on the protecting shoulder, slightly opened her eyelids and saw the
moonlight, the drawn curtains and the Warden standing looking back at
them.
"You can see for yourself that there is nothing here," he said.
It was true, there was nothing there--there wasn't _now_: and for the
first time Gwen was conscious of pain in her head and put up her hand.
There was a lump where she had knocked it, the lump was sore.
"Why, you have hurt your head, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood. "That explains
everything. A blow on the head is just the thing to make you think you
see something that isn't there! Come now, we'll go upstairs and put
something on that bruised head, and make it well again."
"I struck my head after I saw _it_," said Gwen, laying a stress upon the
word "it," averting her eyes from the moonlight and rising with the help
of Lady Dashwood.
"You may have thought so," said Lady Dashwood. "Come we mustn't stop
here. Dr. Middleton probably has letters to write. Jim, good night. I'm
sorry you have been so much disturbed, after a hard day's work."
The tone in which Lady Dashwood made her last remark and her manner in
leading Gwendolen out of the library, was that of a person who has
"closed" a correspondence, terminated an interview. The affair of the
scream and fright was over. It was a perfectly unnecessary incident to
have occurred in a sane working day, so she had apologised for its
intrusion. Why Gwendolen was in the library at all was a question that
was of no consequence. It certainly was not in search of a book on which
to spend the midnight oil. She _was_ there--that was all.
When they had gone, the Warden stood for some moments in the library
pondering. He had shut the door. The curtains he had forgotten to pull
back, and now he discovered his omission and went to the farther end of
the room.
The opposite wall, the wall of the court, was just tipped with silver.
Distant spires and gables were silver grey. The clouds were drifting
over the city westwards, and as the moon rode higher and higher in the
southern sky, so the clouds sped faster before it, and behind it lay
clear unfathomable spaces in the east.
The Warden pulled the heavy curtain across the window again, and walked
to the fireplace. Outside was the infinite universe--its immensity awful
to contemplate! Inside was the narrow security of the lighted room in
which he worked and thought and would work and think--for a few years!
For a few years?
How did he know that he should have even a few years in which to think
and work for his College?
The Warden went to the fire and stood looking down into it, his hands
clasped behind his back.
The girl he was pledged to marry, if she wished to marry him, might
wreck his life! She had only just a few moments ago showed signs of
being weakly hysterical. "Helpful to the College!" His sister's
question had filled him with a sudden new ominous thought.
What about the College? He had forgotten his duty to the College!
"My marriage is my own concern," he was blurting out to himself
miserably, as he looked at the fire. But the inevitable answer was
already drumming in his ears--his own answer: "A man's action is not his
own concern, and so deeply is every man involved in the life of the
community in which he lives, that even his thoughts are not his own
concern."
The Warden paced up and down.
There were letters lying on his desk unopened, unread. He would not
attempt to answer any of them to-night. He could not attend to them,
while these words were beating in his brain: "Do you think she will be
helpful to the College?"
His College! More to him than anything else, more than his duty; his
hope, his pride! And the College meant also the sacred memory of those
who had fallen in the war, all the glorious hopeful youth that had
sacrificed itself! And he had forgotten the College!
He dared not think any longer. He must wrestle with his thoughts. He
must force them aside and wait, till the moment came when he must act.
That moment might not come! Possibly it might not! He would go to bed
and try and sleep. He must not let thoughts so bitter and so deadly
overwhelm him, eating into the substance of his brain, where they could
breed and batten on the finest tissues and breed again.
He was looking at his desk and saw that one letter had tumbled from it
on to the floor by his chair. He went across and picked it up. It was
addressed in a big straggling hand--and had not come by post. He tore it
open. It was from Gwendolen Scott. This was why she had come into the
library. Without moving from the position where he stood he read it
through.