The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but
except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in
an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no
comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case
he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case,
I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as
had gathered us for the occasion—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to
a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in
the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him
to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had
succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this
observation that drew from Douglas—not immediately, but later in the
evening—a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call
attention. Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which
I saw he was not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself
something to produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in
fact till two nights later; but that same evening, before we scattered,
he brought out what was in his mind.
“I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it was—that
its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a
particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming
kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the
effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to _two_ children—?”
“We say, of course,” somebody exclaimed, “that they give two turns!
Also that we want to hear about them.”
I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to
present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in
his pockets. “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It’s quite too
horrible.” This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the
thing the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his
triumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on: “It’s
beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.”
“For sheer terror?” I remember asking.
He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss
how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little
wincing grimace. “For dreadful—dreadfulness!”
“Oh, how delicious!” cried one of the women.
He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he
saw what he spoke of. “For general uncanny ugliness and horror and
pain.”
“Well then,” I said, “just sit right down and begin.”
He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it an
instant. Then as he faced us again: “I can’t begin. I shall have to
send to town.” There was a unanimous groan at this, and much reproach;
after which, in his preoccupied way, he explained. “The story’s
written. It’s in a locked drawer—it has not been out for years. I could
write to my man and enclose the key; he could send down the packet as
he finds it.” It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound
this—appeared almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a
thickness of ice, the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons
for a long silence. The others resented postponement, but it was just
his scruples that charmed me. I adjured him to write by the first post
and to agree with us for an early hearing; then I asked him if the
experience in question had been his own. To this his answer was prompt.
“Oh, thank God, no!”
“And is the record yours? You took the thing down?”
“Nothing but the impression. I took that _here_”—he tapped his heart.
“I’ve never lost it.”
“Then your manuscript—?”
“Is in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand.” He hung fire
again. “A woman’s. She has been dead these twenty years. She sent me
the pages in question before she died.” They were all listening now,
and of course there was somebody to be arch, or at any rate to draw the
inference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it was also
without irritation. “She was a most charming person, but she was ten
years older than I. She was my sister’s governess,” he quietly said.
“She was the most agreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position; she
would have been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this
episode was long before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on
my coming down the second summer. I was much there that year—it was a
beautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls and talks in
the garden—talks in which she struck me as awfully clever and nice. Oh
yes; don’t grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think
she liked me, too. If she hadn’t she wouldn’t have told me. She had
never told anyone. It wasn’t simply that she said so, but that I knew
she hadn’t. I was sure; I could see. You’ll easily judge why when you
hear.”
“Because the thing had been such a scare?”
He continued to fix me. “You’ll easily judge,” he repeated: “_you_
will.”