THE COMPANION OF HIS SOLITUDE
When he looked up, it was timidly, doubtfully, as if fearful of what
he might see. He glanced about him anxiously from side to side, as if
in search of something or some one.
"Tom!--Tom!" he said, speaking it was difficult to say to whom.
He paused, as if for an answer. When none came, he drew himself
upright gradually, inch by inch. They noticed how his lips were
twitching, and how the whole of his body trembled. He passed his hand
over his eyes, as a man might who is waking from a dream. Then he
stretched it out in front of him, palm upwards, with a something of
supplication in the action which lent pathos to the words he
uttered--words which in themselves were more than sufficiently
bizarre.
"Do any of you believe in ghosts?--in disembodied spirits assuming a
corporeal shape?--in the dead returning from their graves? Or is a man
who thinks he sees a ghost, who knows he sees a ghost, who knows that
a ghost is a continual attendant of his waking and of his sleeping
hours alike--must such a man be in labour with some horrible delusion
of his senses? Is his brain of necessity unhinged? Must he of a
certainty be mad?"
Not only was such an interrogation in itself remarkable, but more
especially was it so as coming from such a figure as Ballingall
presented. His rags and dirt were in strange contrast with his
language. His words, chosen as it seemed with a nice precision, came
from his lips with all the signs of practiced ease. His manner, even
his voice, assumed a touch of refinement which before it lacked. In
him was displayed the spectacle of a man of talent and of parts
encased in all the outward semblance of a creature of the kennel.
Madge, to whom the inquiry seemed to be more particularly addressed,
replied to it with another.
"Why do you ask us such a question?"
About the man's earnestness, as he responded, there could be no doubt.
The muscles of his face twitched as with St. Vitus' Dance; beads of
sweat stood upon his brow; the intensity of his desire to give
adequate expression to his thoughts seemed to hamper his powers of
utterance.
"Because I want some one to help me--some one, God or man. Because,
during the last year and more I have endured a continual agony to
which I doubt if the pains of hell can be compared. Because things
with me have come to such a pitch that it is only at times I know if I
am dead or living, asleep or waking, mad or sane, myself or another."
He pointed to Graham.
"He has told you how it was with me aforetime; how I was
haunted--driven by a ghost to gaol. When I was in gaol it was worse a
thousandfold--I was haunted, always, day and night. The ghost of my
old friend--the best friend man ever had--whom in so many ways I had
so blackly and often wronged, was with me, continually, in my cell. Oh
for some sign by which I could know that my sins have been forgiven
me!--by which I could learn that by suffering I could atone for the
evil I have done! Some sign, O Lord, some sign!"
He threw his hands above his head in a paroxysm of passion. As has
been said of more than one great tragic actor, in his voice there were
tears. As, indeed, there were in the eyes of at least one of those who
heard. His manner, when he proceeded, was a little calmer--which very
fact seemed to italicise the strangeness of his tale.
"The first day I spent in prison I was half beside myself with rage. I
had done things for which I had merited punishment, even of man, and
now that punishment had come, it was for something I had not done. The
irony, as well as the injustice of it, made me nearly wild. I had my
first taste of the crank--which is as miserable, as futile, and as
irritating a mode of torture as was ever spewed out of a flesh and
blood crank's unhealthy stomach; and I was having, what they called
there, dinner, when the cell door opened, and--Tom Ossington came in.
It was just after noon, in the broad day. He came right in front of
me, and, leaning on his stick, he stood and watched me. I had not been
thinking of him, and, a moment before, had been hot with fury, ready
to dare or do anything; but, at the sight of him, the strength went
out of me. My bones might have been made of jelly, they seemed so
little able to support my body. There was nothing about him which was
in the least suggestive of anything unusual. He was dressed in a short
coat and felt hat, which were just like the coat and hats which he
always had worn; and he had in his hand the identical stick which I
had seen him carry perhaps a thousand times. If it was a ghost, then
there are ghosts of clothes as well as of men. If it was an optical
delusion, then there are more things in optics than are dreamt of in
our philosophy. If it was an hallucination born of a disordered mind,
then it is possible to become lunatic without being conscious of any
preliminary sappings of the brain; and it is indeed but an invisible
border line which divides the madmen from the sane.
"'Well, Charlie,' he said, in the quiet tones which I had known so
well, 'so it's come to this. You made a bit of a mistake in coming
when you did to fetch away that fortune of yours.'
"'It seems,' I said, 'as if I had.'
"He laughed--that gentle laugh of his which had always seemed to me to
be so full of enjoyment.
"'Never mind, Charlie, you come another time. The fortune won't run
away while you're in here.'
"With that, he turned and limped out of the cell; the door seeming to
open before him at a touch of his hand, and shutting behind him as
noiselessly as it had opened. It was only after he had gone that I
realised what it was that I had seen. In an instant I was in a muck of
sweat. While I was sitting on my stool, more dead than alive, the door
opened again, this time with clatter and noise enough, and a warder
appeared. He glared at me in a fashion which meant volumes.
"'Is that you talking in here? You'd better take care, my lad, or
you'll make a bad beginning.'
"He banged the door behind him--and he went."
Ballingall paused, to wipe his brow with the back of his hand; and he
sighed.
"I made a bad beginning, and, from the warder's point of view, I went
from bad to worse. I do not know if the man I had injured has been
suffered to torture me before my time, or if, where he is, his nature
has changed, and he seeks, in the grave, the vengeance he never sought
in life. If so, he has his fill of it--he surely has had his fill of
it!--already. It was through him that I was there, and now that I was
there he made my sojourn in the prison worse than it need have been.
Much worse, God knows.
"That first visitation of his was followed by others. Twice, thrice,
sometimes four times a day, he would come to me when I was in my cell,
and speak to me, and compel me to answer him; and my voice would be
heard without. It became quite a custom for the warder on duty to
stand outside my cell, often in the middle of the night, and pounce on
me as soon as Tom had gone. The instant Tom went, the warder would
come in. Never once did an officer enter while he was actually with
me, but, almost invariably, his departure was the signal for the
warder to put in his appearance. I don't know how it was, or why it
was, but so it was. I would be accused of carrying on a conversation
with myself, reported, and punished. As a matter of fact, I was in
continual hot water--because of Tom. Not a single week passed from
that in which I entered the prison, to that in which I left it, during
which I did not undergo punishment of some sort or the other, because
of Tom. As a result, all my marks were bad marks. When I left the
gaol, so far from receiving the miserable pittance which good-conduct
prisoners are supposed to earn, I was penniless; I had not even the
wherewithal with which to buy myself a crust of bread.
"A more dreadful form of torture Tom could hardly have invented. A man
need not necessarily suffer although he is in gaol. But I suffered.
Always I was in the bad books of the officers. They regarded me as an
incorrigible bad-conduct man--which, from their point of view, I was.
All sorts of ignominy was heaped on me. Every form of punishment I
could be made to undergo I had to undergo. I never earned my stripe,
nor the right of having a coir mattress with which to cover the bare
board on which I was supposed to sleep. I was nearly starved, owing to
the perpetually recurring bread and water. And the horrors I endured,
the devils which beset me, in that unspeakable dark cell! To me, gaol
was a long-drawn-out and ever-increasing agony, from the first moment
to the last.
"God knows it was!"
The speaker paused. He stood, his fists clenched, staring vacantly in
front of him, as if he saw there, in a mist, the crowding spectres of
the past. There seemed to come a break in his voice as he continued.
He spoke with greater hesitation.
"Some three months before my sentence was completed, Tom changed his
tactics. While I was sleeping--such sleep!--on the bare board which
served me as a bed, I'd have a vision. It was like a vision--like a
vision, and yet--it was as if I was awake. It seemed as if Tom came to
me, and put his arm into mine, and led me out of gaol, and brought me
here to Clover Cottage. He'd stand at the gate and say 'Charlie, this
is Clover Cottage,' and I'd answer, 'I know it is.' Then he'd
laugh--in some way that laugh of his seemed to cut me like a knife.
And he'd lead me down the pathway and into the house, to this very
room. Though"--Ballingall looked about him doubtfully--"it wasn't
furnished as it is now. It was like it used to be. And he'd go and
stand by the door, as you did"--this was to Madge--"and he'd say,
'Now, Charlie, pay particular attention to what I am about to do. I'm
going to show you how to get that fortune of yours--which you came for
once before and went away without. Now observe.'
"Then he'd walk straight across the room, as you did," again to
Madge--"and he'd turn to me and say, 'Notice exactly what I'm doing!'
Then he'd take a foot rule from his pocket, and he'd measure three
feet from where he stood along the floor. And he'd hold up the rule,
and say, 'You see--three feet.' Then he'd measure four feet from the
floor, and hold out the rule again and say, 'You see, four feet.' Then
he'd put his hand against the panel and move it upwards, and it would
slide open--and there was an open space within. He'd put his hand into
the open space, and take something out; it looked to me like a sheet
of paper. And he'd say, 'This is what will give you that fortune of
yours--when you find it. Only you'll have to find it first. Be sure
you find it, Charlie.'
"And he'd laugh--and, though it was the gentle laugh of his which I
had known so well of old, there was something about it which seemed to
mock me, and cut me like a whip and make me quiver. He'd take my arm
again, and lead me from the house and back to the gaol, and I'd wake
to find myself lying on the bare board, alone in the dark cell, crying
like a child.
"In the morning, perhaps at dinner-time, he'd come into the cell in
the usual way, and ask me:
"'Charlie, do you remember last night?' 'Yes, Tom,' I'd reply, 'I do.'
And then he'd go on:
"'Mind you don't forget. It's most important, Charlie, that you
shouldn't forget. I'll tell you what you must remember. Take this and
write it down.'
"And he'd give me something, my Bible, or my prayer-book, or even
the card of rules which was hung against the wall, and a piece of
pencil--though where he got that from I never knew, and he'd say, 'Now
write what I dictate.'
"And I did, just as you saw it on the paper which I left behind; the
first line, 'Tom Ossington's Ghost'--he always made me write that; it
was the only allusion he ever made to there being anything unusual
about his presence there; and the second line, 'right--straight
across--three--four--up.' When I'd written it he'd say:
"'Charlie, mind you take the greatest care of that; don't let it go
out of your possession for a moment. It's the guide to that fortune of
yours.'
"Then he'd go. And the moment he had gone the warder would come
bursting in, and catch me with the pencil, and the Bible, or whatever
it was, in my hand, with the writing on the flyleaf. And he'd begin to
gird at me.
"'So you're at it again, are you? And you've got a pencil, have you?
and been writing in your Bible? You're a pretty sort, upon my word you
are. I tell you what it is, my lad, you'll get yourself into serious
trouble before you've done.'
"And he'd take the pencil away with him, and the Bible, and the
writing; and I'd be reported again, and punished with the utmost
severity which was within the compass of the Governor's power."
Ballingall stopped again. A convulsive fit of trembling seemed to go
all over him.
"Towards the end, the vision took another form. Tom would bring me to
the house--only I think, not to this room, but to another--and he
would do something--he would do something. I saw quite clearly what it
was he did, and understood it well, but, so soon as I was out of the
house, the recollection of what he had done became blurred as by a
mist. I could not remember at all. I'd wake in my cell in an agony to
think that all that Tom had shown me should have slipped my memory. In
the morning he'd come and ask:
"'Charlie, you remember what we did last night?'
"'No, Tom, I don't. I've tried to think, but I can't. It's all
forgotten.'
"He'd laugh--his laugh seeming to mock me more than ever.
"'Never mind, Charlie, I'll tell you all about it. You write down what
I say.'
"And I wrote it down--the last line which was on the scrap of paper.
Though I never knew what it meant--never! never! I've searched my
brains many times to think; and been punished for writing it again and
again.
"At last I was released. At last--my God, at last!"
His whole frame quivered. He drew himself upright, as if endeavouring
to bear himself as became a man.
"I was treated, when going out, according to my deserts. I had earned
no favour, and I received none. The Governor reprimanded me, by way of
a God-speed; told me that my conduct, while in prison, had been very
bad, and warned me that it would go ill with me if I returned. I
went out in the rags in which I had entered, without a penny in my
pocket--hungry at the moment of release, I have not tasted bite or sup
from the time that I came out of gaol until tonight.
"In the afternoon I came round to Clover Cottage. The first thing I
saw was him." He pointed to Graham. "He was afraid of me, and I was
afraid of him--that is the truth. Otherwise I should have gone up to
him and asked him for at least a shilling, because directly I caught
sight of him I knew what he was after, and that I was going to be
tricked and robbed again. While I was trying to summon up courage
enough to beg of the man whom I knew had played me false, I saw some
one else, and I ran away.
"I meant to get a bed in the casual ward of the Wandsworth Workhouse.
But Tom came to me as I was going there, and told me not to be so
silly, but to come and get the fortune which was waiting for me at
Clover Cottage. So I came. But I never got the fortune.
"And ever since I've been growing hungrier and hungrier, until I've
grown beside myself with hunger--because Tom stopped me when I was
going to the workhouse again last night, and bade me not to be so
silly, though I don't know why I should have been silly in seeking for
shelter and for food. And not a couple of hours ago he came to me
while I was trying to find a hole on the Common in which to sleep, and
packed me off once more to fetch away my fortune. But I haven't found
it yet--not yet, not yet. Though"--he stretched out his arms on either
side of him, and on his face there came a strange look of what seemed
exultation--"I know it's near."
In the pause which followed, Ella raised her hand.
"Listen," she exclaimed; "who's that? There's some one at the garden
gate."
There did seem some one at the garden gate, some one who opened and
shut it with a bang. They heard footsteps on the tiles which led to
the front door. While they waited, listening for a knock, another
sound was heard.
"Hark," cried Ella. "There's some one fumbling with a latchkey at the
door, trying to open it. Whoever can it be--at this hour of the night?
There must be some mistake."
"I think," said Madge, in her eyes there was a very odd expression,
"it is possible there is no mistake--this time."