It was with a feeling of depression for which I could in no way account
that, one cold evening, towards the end of February, I left Buckingham
Street and wended my way to the Uninhabited House. I had been eager to
engage in the enterprise; first, for the sake of the fifty pounds
reward; and secondly, and much more, for the sake of Helena Elmsdale. I
had tormented Mr. Craven until he gave a reluctant consent to my desire.
I had brooded over the matter until I became eager to commence my
investigations, as a young soldier may be to face the enemy; and yet,
when the evening came, and darkness with it; when I set my back to the
more crowded thoroughfares, and found myself plodding along a lonely
suburban road, with a keen wind lashing my face, and a suspicion of rain
at intervals wetting my cheeks, I confess I had no feeling of enjoyment
in my self-imposed task.
After all, talking about a haunted house in broad daylight to one's
fellow-clerks, in a large London office, is a very different thing from
taking up one's residence in the same house, all alone, on a bleak
winter's night, with never a soul within shouting distance. I had made
up my mind to go through with the matter, and no amount of mental
depression, no wintry blasts, no cheerless roads, no desolate goal,
should daunt me; but still I did not like the adventure, and at every
step I felt I liked it less.
Before leaving town I had fortified my inner man with a good dinner and
some excellent wine, but by the time I reached River Hall I might have
fasted for a week, so faint and spiritless did I feel.
"Come, this will never do," I thought, as I turned the key in the
door, and crossed the threshold of the Uninhabited House. "I must not
begin with being chicken-hearted, or I may as well give up the
investigation at once."
The fires I had caused to be kindled in the morning, though almost out
by the time I reached River Hall, had diffused a grateful warmth
throughout the house; and when I put a match to the paper and wood laid
ready in the grate of the room I meant to occupy, and lit the gas, in
the hall, on the landing, and in my sleeping-apartment, I began to think
things did not look so cheerless, after all.
The seals which, for precaution's sake, I had placed on the various
locks, remained intact. I looked to the fastenings of the hall-door,
examined the screws by which the bolts were attached to the wood, and
having satisfied myself that everything of that kind was secure, went
up to my room, where the fire was now crackling and blazing famously,
put the kettle on the hob, drew a chair up close to the hearth,
exchanged my boots for slippers, lit a pipe, pulled out my law-books,
and began to read.
How long I had read, I cannot say; the kettle on the hob was boiling, at
any rate, and the coals had burned themselves into a red-hot mass of
glowing cinders, when my attention was attracted--or rather, I should
say, distracted--by the sound of tapping outside the window-pane. First
I listened, and read on, then I laid down my book and listened more
attentively. It was exactly the noise which a person would make tapping
upon glass with one finger.
The wind had risen almost to a tempest, but, in the interval between
each blast, I could hear the tapping as distinctly as if it had been
inside my own skull--tap, tap, imperatively; tap, tap, tap, impatiently;
and when I rose to approach the casement, it seemed as if three more
fingers had joined in the summons, and were rapping for bare life.
"They have begun betimes," I thought; and taking my revolver in one
hand, with the other I opened the shutters, and put aside the blind.
As I did so, it seemed as if some dark body occupied one side of the
sash, while the tapping continued as madly as before.
It is as well to confess at once that I was for the moment frightened.
Subsequently I saw many wonderful sights, and had some terrible
experiences in the Uninhabited House; but I can honestly say, no sight
or experience so completely cowed me for the time being, as that dull
blackness to which I could assign no shape, that spirit-like rapping of
fleshless fingers, which seemed to increase in vehemence as I obeyed
its summons.
Doctors say it is not possible for the heart to stand still and a human
being live, and, as I am not a doctor, I do not like to contradict their
dogma, otherwise I could positively declare my heart did cease beating
as I listened, looking out into the night with the shadow of that
darkness projecting itself upon my mind, to the impatient tapping, which
was now distinctly audible even above the raging of the storm.
How I gathered sufficient courage to do it, I cannot tell; but I put my
face close to the glass, thus shutting out the gas and fire-light, and
saw that the dark object which alarmed me was a mass of ivy the wind had
detached from the wall, and that the invisible fingers were young
branches straying from the main body of the plant, which, tossed by the
air-king, kept striking the window incessantly, now one, now two, now
three, tap, tap, tap; tap, tap; tap, tap; and sometimes, after a long
silence, all together, tap-p-p, like the sound of clamming bells.
I stood for a minute or two, listening to the noise, so as to satisfy
myself as to its cause, then I laid down the revolver, took out my
pocket-knife, and opened the window. As I did so, a tremendous blast
swept into the room, extinguishing the gas, causing the glowing coals to
turn, for a moment, black on one side and to fiercest blaze on the
other, scattering the dust lying on the hearth over the carpet, and
dashing the ivy-sprays against my face with a force which caused my
cheeks to smart and tingle long afterwards.
Taking my revenge, I cut them as far back as I could, and then, without
closing the window, and keeping my breath as well as I could, I looked
out across the garden over the Thames, away to the opposite bank, where
a few lights glimmered at long intervals. "An eerie, lonely place for a
fellow to be in all by himself," I continued; "and yet, if the rest of
the ghosts, bodiless or clothed with flesh, which frequent this house
prove to be as readily laid as those ivy-twigs, I shall earn my
money--and--my--thanks, easily enough."
So considering, I relit the gas, replenished the fire, refilled my pipe,
reseated myself by the hearth, and with feet stretched out towards the
genial blaze, attempted to resume my reading.
All in vain: I could not fix my attention on the page; I could not
connect one sentence with another. When my mind ought to have
concentrated its energies upon Justice That, and Vice-Chancellor This,
and Lord Somebody Else, I felt it wandering away, trying to fit together
all the odds and ends of evidence worthy or unworthy concerning the
Uninhabited House. Which really was, as we had always stated, a good
house, a remarkably good house, well furnished, suitable in every
respect, &c.
Had I been a "family of respectability," or a gentleman of position,
with a large number of servants, a nice wife, and a few children
sprinkled about the domestic picture, I doubt not I should have enjoyed
the contemplation of that glowing fire, and rejoiced in the idea of
finding myself located in so desirable a residence, within an easy
distance of the West End; but, as matters stood, I felt anything rather
than elated.
In that large house there was no human inmate save myself, and I had an
attack of nervousness upon me for which I found it impossible to
account. Here was I, at length, under the very roof where my mistress
had passed all her childish days, bound to solve the mystery which was
making such havoc with her young life, permitted to essay a task, the
accomplishment of which should cover me with glory, and perhaps restore
peace and happiness to her heart; and yet I was _afraid_. I did not
hesitate to utter that word to my own soul then, any more than I
hesitate to write it now for those who list to read: for I can truly say
I think there are few men whose courage such an adventure would not try
were they to attempt it; and I am sure, had any one of those to whom I
tell this story been half as much afraid as I, he would have left River
Hall there and then, and allowed the ghosts said to be resident, to
haunt it undisturbed for evermore.
If I could only have kept memory from running here and there in quest of
evidence pro and con the house being haunted, I should have fared
better: but I could not do this.
Let me try as I would to give my attention to those legal studies that
ought to have engrossed my attention, I could not succeed in doing so:
my thoughts, without any volition on my part, kept continually on the
move; now with Miss Blake in Buckingham Street, again with Colonel
Morris on the river walk, once more with Miss Elmsdale in the library;
and went constantly flitting hither and thither, recalling the
experiences of a frightened lad, or the terror of an ignorant woman; yet
withal I had a feeling that in some way memory was playing me false, as
if, when ostentatiously bringing out all her stores for me to make or
mar as I could, she had really hidden away, in one of her remotest
corners, some link, great or little as the case might be, but still,
whether great or little, necessary to connect the unsatisfactory
narratives together.
Till late in the night I sat trying to piece my puzzle together, but
without success. There was a flaw in the story, a missing point in it,
somewhere, I felt certain. I often imagined I was about to touch it,
when, heigh! presto! it eluded my grasp.
"The whole affair will resolve itself into ivy-boughs," I finally,
if not truthfully, decided. "I am satisfied it is all--ivy," and I
went to bed.
Now, whether it was that I had thought too much of the ghostly
narratives associated with River Hall, the storminess of the night, the
fact of sleeping in a strange room, or the strength of a tumbler of
brandy-and-water, in which brandy took an undue lead, I cannot tell; but
during the morning hours I dreamed a dream which filled me with an
unspeakable horror, from which I awoke struggling for breath, bathed in
a cold perspiration, and with a dread upon me such as I never felt in
any waking moment of my life.
I dreamt I was lying asleep in the room I actually occupied, when I was
aroused from a profound slumber by the noise produced by some one
tapping at the window-pane. On rising to ascertain the cause of this
summons, I saw Colonel Morris standing outside and beckoning me to join
him. With that disregard of space, time, distance, and attire which
obtains in dreams, I at once stepped out into the garden. It was a
pitch-dark night, and bitterly cold, and I shivered, I know, as I heard
the sullen flow of the river, and listened to the moaning of the wind
among the trees.
We walked on for some minutes in silence, then my companion asked me if
I felt afraid, or if I would go on with him.
"I will go where you go," I answered.
Then suddenly he disappeared, and Playfire, who had been his counsel at
the time of the trial, took my hand and led me onwards.
We passed through a doorway, and, still in darkness, utter darkness,
began to descend some steps. We went down--down--hundreds of steps as it
seemed to me, and in my sleep, I still remembered the old idea of its
being unlucky to dream of going downstairs. But at length we came to the
bottom, and then began winding along interminable passages, now so
narrow only one could walk abreast, and again so low that we had to
stoop our heads in order to avoid striking the roof.
After we had been walking along these for hours, as time reckons in such
cases, we commenced ascending flight after flight of steep stone-steps.
I laboured after Playfire till my limbs ached and grew weary, till,
scarcely able to drag my feet from stair to stair, I entreated him to
stop; but he only laughed and held on his course the more rapidly, while
I, hurrying after, often stumbled and recovered myself, then stumbled
again and lay prone.
The night air blew cold and chill upon me as I crawled out into an
unaccustomed place and felt my way over heaps of uneven earth and
stones that obstructed my progress in every direction. I called out
for Playfire, but the wind alone answered me; I shouted for Colonel
Morris; I entreated some one to tell me where I was; and in answer
there was a dead and terrible silence. The wind died away; not a
breath of air disturbed the heavy stillness which had fallen so
suddenly around me. Instead of the veil of merciful blackness which
had hidden everything hitherto from view, a gray light spread slowly
over the objects around, revealing a burial-ground, with an old church
standing in the midst--a burial-ground where grew rank nettles and
coarse, tall grass; where brambles trailed over the graves, and weeds
and decay consorted with the dead.
Moved by some impulse which I could not resist, I still held on my
course, over mounds of earth, between rows of headstones, till I reached
the other side of the church, under the shadow of which yawned an open
pit. To the bottom of it I peered, and there beheld an empty coffin; the
lid was laid against the side of the grave, and on a headstone,
displaced from its upright position, sat the late occupant of the grave,
looking at me with wistful, eager eyes. A stream of light from within
the church fell across that one empty grave, that one dead watcher.
"So you have come at last," he said; and then the spell was broken, and
I would have fled, but that, holding me with his left hand, he pointed
with his right away to a shadowy distance, where the gray sky merged
into deepest black.
I strained my eyes to discover the object he strove to indicate, but I
failed to do so. I could just discern something flitting away into the
darkness, but I could give it no shape or substance.
"Look--look!" the dead man said, rising, in his excitement, and
clutching me more firmly with his clay-cold fingers.
I tried to fly, but I could not; my feet were chained to the spot. I
fought to rid myself of the clasp of the skeleton hand, and then we fell
together over the edge of the pit, and I awoke.