The appearance of prosperity on the farmer’s part lasted for just
about two years. During that time Maggie won a scholarship and went to
another school. Deborah still remained at the old one, and still did
the old home-lessons.
It was with great joy she once came home to say she had got the prize
for these same home-lessons, and her greatest pride was that half the
glory of it all was father’s. And he was just as pleased. Poor man!
he didn’t get much success, so who could grudge him that? And he went
to see her get it, though he didn’t often go to that kind of thing;
and she had been so very nervous for fear she should make a mistake in
going up and so make him ashamed of her. But the gentleman who gave the
prizes had patted her ever so kindly on the head and he said he thought
the home-lesson prize the best prize of the lot, for it showed the
people at home took interest in the children’s work.
After that the children at the school wrote an Essay on Kindness to
Animals for a prize given by the well-known Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals.
Naturally Deborah wrote one too. And the farmer put himself out greatly
to gather together material for her to write upon. He looked up
anecdotes, and told her some of his own personal experiences. And who
could have had more personal experience than he? Why, he had been one
of the best drivers in the country round, and the horses just seemed to
know when he held the reins, and curved their necks and champed their
bits accordingly.
But no, there was no prize gained for that; the solitary prize they
gained between them was that little book for home-lessons. He was
disappointed, though he never admitted to it. However, he took her face
in his two hands and said,—
“Never mind, we’ll try again some other time.”
He had arranged that she and Maggie should be teachers, and because she
had perfect trust in him she thought that teaching was the finest thing
in life. Besides, he and she had arranged that when she grew up and he
was getting old (she could never bear to think of that, though) they
were going to live together.
“I’ll make him so really happy,” she used to say to herself, “that he
won’t know he is not walking on velvet carpets all the while,” and she
meant it.
Matrimony had no attractions for Deborah.
“How anybody can go and live with a strange man they haven’t known all
their lives I don’t know,” she used to ponder occasionally. And she
used to sigh.
“I expect it’s because their fathers are not half so good as mine. I
never met anybody, not anybody, half so perfect.”
So the time went on. And every night, since that first night at the
beginning of the two years, when she had uttered the prayer for him,
she still continued to pray. Repetition instead of weakening only
strengthened it. Nightly the silent tears would squeeze themselves
between her closed lids because she felt it all so strongly. And every
night she rose from her knees comforted. It was as if God stood there
and said: “Yes, I will take care of him. He has been very good and very
patient through all his losses and failures. And now I am going to let
his last years be very happy ones. Only trust in me, and have faith.”
One night after this fervent prayer Deborah got into bed feeling in
love and charity with all men.
Now, she was very frightened of the dark. “I feel as if when I’m in
the dark there are things pressing all round me,” she used to say to
herself, “so that I cannot breathe.” But she had also been told by
various members of the family that people who were frightened of the
dark had evil consciences. Therefore she used to try to overcome this
excessive fear by earnest prayer.
On this particular night, however, she seemed for once to have got
the better of her fear, as she neither closed her eyes nor pulled the
bed-clothes very high about her head.
The real truth was she had got on to one of her favourite lines of
thought—the devil.
“I can’t understand the devil,” she said half aloud. “I think he’s a
silly old thing. The idea of him setting himself up to fight against
God! Why, he might know he’d be beaten any day. I’m not the least bit
frightened of him with his ugly horns and hoofs—he doesn’t seem to
know whether he’s a man or a cow.” And she laughed.
But before the laugh had ended a curious sensation came creeping over
her. It was as if something were compelling her to look at the foot of
the bed, and she looked.
The light was pretty low, yet high enough for her to discern the
objects around; but by the lower bed-post there was an unfamiliar
shadow.
Deborah felt as if some power beyond herself was dragging her up in bed.
“Sit up,” said the voice.
“But—” she gasped.
“No buts,” said the voice.
So she sat up, grasping the pillow behind her with both hands, and for
the first time in her life, and perhaps the last, she knew what it was
to feel her hair literally rising.
And there—yes, Deborah never forgot it—there stood the dark, dusky
form so different from that which her imagination pictured.
Her first wild longing was to get up and run, crying for help, but
every limb seemed frozen.
“What! will you run away from that which you have laughed at?” said the
even voice. “Look!”
She looked.
It was a face and figure to remember, just above medium height, not
too tall. One arm rested on the bed-post, and he was slightly leaning
towards the bed. But the face. Every feature was perfect and most
finely cut. The chin a little square, though more inclined to oval. The
mouth proud and firm, with lips bent into a cruel and perpetual smile.
The nose straight and strong and perfect. The forehead high and with
one deep wrinkle. But the eyes—who, having seen them, could forget
them? They were the only thing about him that was not human. They were
deep-set, gloomy, cruel, far-reaching, and yet not the least like human
eyes. They seemed as if they showed you things, terrible things, too
awful to be spoken of.
And Deborah, held by a power much stronger than herself, looked right
into them, into those great black sombre dusky balls of hidden fire,
and they returned the stare.
Suddenly she began to find the feeling of extreme fear passing.
And gradually as it had come the vision melted, but Deborah still
continued to sit up in bed.
“I wonder what the angels were about to let him get in,” she thought,
her heart still beating hard. “And when I said ‘Jesus Christ’ he never
moved a bit. But he hadn’t any horns as they always give him in the
pictures. I wonder how I knew it was the devil. I expect because he
looked so horribly dark and bad. I’d best sit up for fear he returns.”
She sat up, and some time afterwards she heard her father coming to
bed. She called him in just to have the light turned up and see a human
being again, and after that she lay down and slept peacefully.
Still, though Deborah remembered the scene for ever after she never by
any chance mentioned it to anyone.
“They would only say I imagined it,” she said, “and laugh at me for
believing in a ghost. Besides, if I did tell them they wouldn’t
understand, as it wasn’t a ghost.”
And after a time the incident slipped back into the dim recesses of her
memory, only to be called back at a later date.