Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 29

Being warned by the doctor never to address her or touch her whilst in this state, lest the shock should be too great for her, I, at first, used to follow her with my eyes about the room, and if she left the chamber, I generally used to rise and follow softly after, at some distance, lest an accident should befall her. But finding soon that she was just as certain of her footing in her sleep as in her waking moments, I began to abandon my fears, and thought no more of this peculiarity.

Indeed, as she was in the habit of rising every other night, I soon felt far too sleepy to trouble myself about her. But soon this strange power in her began to develop itself, and to take a stranger and more interesting form.

She would now get up at night, sit herself down at a table, take pen, ink, and paper, and fill sheet after sheet with close writing and elegant composition. This was particularly the case if she had left a task uncompleted during the day. In the morning it was sure to be found finished, and generally better done than if it had been accomplished during her hours of waking; nor was she herself conscious of it until she examined her exercise the next morning.

If I perchance should have an uncompleted task on hand, she would invariably finish mine before her own. But this phenomenon in my young friend, however strange and unaccountable it may seem, sinks into utter insignificance before a far more terrible one which I am now about to describe.

You may think I exaggerate, gentlemen, or that it was the effect of my own over-wrought fancy, produced by sleepless nights of watching over my young friend, but there are witnesses living yet who saw what I saw, and who are ready to give their testimony. The doctor of this village, together with his a.s.sistant, the rector, and two women living close by, are among these I speak of, besides others. Let them speak for themselves if you will not believe my word.

The phenomenon to which I have above alluded was the power, if I may so call it, of dividing herself in two, or becoming two separate beings; that is to say, of making a duplicate of herself. This extraordinary and fearful gift had evidently been noticed by others before it fell under my own observation, since for a long time previous to seeing it myself it was reported throughout the village that Claribel Falkland had appeared in two places at the same time.

To this, however, as to all other village gossip, I paid no attention, knowing well how trifles get exaggerated after pa.s.sing through many mouths, and how sometimes reports are circulated without an atom of truth for their foundation. I can only tell you, however, gentlemen, what I saw with my own eyes, believe it, or not, as you will. One morning, then, after returning home from school, Claribel having been unable to attend from some slight indisposition, I entered the room suddenly where my friend was seated. I remember, too, that I had never felt in better health in all my life, when there, to my utter consternation, was not only my friend, seated as was her wont, in an easy chair, with her head resting on her hand, but another figure, the exact counterpart of herself, a duplicate Claribel, leaning over the back of her arm-chair, exactly in the same position as my friend happened to be at the time.

I remained at the door, my eyes and mouth wide open, in mute horror, unable to advance a step or utter an exclamation, until my friend, looking up and inquiring the reason of my surprise, the figure behind the chair instantly vanished. I then proceeded to relate to her the vision, which she, however, smiled at and affected to treat as a temporary delusion on my part, the result of indigestion or disordered state of my nerves. I persisted that I was in the most perfect health, and that I had seen what I chose to style her "double."

She declared to me that she herself had not been conscious of it, and that, therefore, whatever I might say to the contrary, it _was_ a delusion. She answered even with some irritability--very unusual to her--which made me think that she had long been aware of this phenomenon in herself, but wished to keep it secret from others.

Seeing she was displeased, I said no more, and half persuaded myself that I had been deluded by my senses. She had been living with us for some time previous to the first appearance of the spectre, but after this first visit the apparition repeatedly presented itself, often as many as five or six times in the same day, though sometimes disappearing for a week or a month, and then returning. I observed that the figure always appeared clearer and more defined the more my friend appeared absorbed in some favourite occupation, or when in a deep reverie. In whatsoever way she happened to be occupied, whether in reading, writing, reckoning, or in earnest conversation, the spectre would instantly appear behind her, imitating her every movement with the precision of a looking-gla.s.s.

Of course, this peculiarity in her const.i.tution caused no slight terror to myself, as well as to my father, who was then alive, and some intimate friends; yet after a time, finding that the visits of the apparition boded no harm, and getting accustomed to the same, we hailed our spiritual visitant as a welcome guest, cracking jokes in its presence, and even addressing it with so little appearance of reverence, that had it not been a very good-tempered spectre, it must have resented our rudeness. But the double never showed any resentment, unless treating us all with silent contempt may be considered as resentment.

Indeed, it had never been once known to utter a sound; neither did it appear to be conscious of our presence.

I remember on one occasion, for a frolic, throwing a heavy book at its head, but this had no further effect than to disturb for a moment the luminous ether of which the spectre appeared composed, and which speedily re-settled itself, while the phantom seemed unconscious of having received injury or insult of any kind. The book pa.s.sed through its head as if it had been air or smoke, and fell to the ground. I was bold enough once to walk up to it and take it by the arm, and found to my surprise, that there was a slight resistance, like that of muslin or c.r.a.pe, but it melted within my grasp, and I noticed that wherever I placed my hand, that that part of the figure was instantly wanting, and did not right itself until I withdrew my touch.

Sometimes the whole figure would disappear if I came within two paces of it, and it was not always of the same consistency, being sometimes less palpable than at others. This I observed to be dependent upon the greater or less absorption of my friend in her occupation or reverie. It is also remarkable that the more clearly defined and life-like the phantom appeared, the more exhausted and haggard grew my friend, and _vice versa_.

But I must now return to the second visit of our spiritual companion.

You may well imagine my terror and consternation at its first appearance, yet when the first shock had pa.s.sed over, I should probably never have related the vision to a single soul, and set down everything to hallucination, had I not shortly after caught a second glimpse of the spectre. This time my friend and I happened to be playing chess together, when, whilst waiting for her to move, I distinctly saw the double leaning over her chair, as if in the act of a.s.sisting her in the game.

"Look, Claribel," I cried; "there it is again, you can't deny it this time," whereupon the figure instantly disappeared.

Now, as my friend still persisted that it was nothing more than my delusion, I began to be alarmed for my own health, and acquainted my father with what I had seen. He, too, laughed at me, and called it a silly girlish fancy, but said no more until I had seen it again three or four times, going immediately to my father each time after the vision had presented itself, and describing to him exactly the att.i.tude and the gestures of the apparition on each successive visit.

Then my father became alarmed for the state of my health, and a doctor was sent for, that I might be bled. But on the doctor's arrival, he could detect nothing wrong with me; but just to satisfy my father, ordered me a little harmless physic, and took his departure. Believing that whether the doctor perceived it or not, that I must really be in a very bad state, I took all his medicine in regular doses, and at the times prescribed, carrying out his injunctions to the letter.

Nevertheless, the vision continued, appearing several times a day, and remaining sometimes almost half the day at a visit. Upon hearing all this, my father called for the doctor again, and positively insisted on my being bled this time. I remember that I was averse to the operation, never having undergone it before, and imagining that the pain would be much greater than I found it in reality. I therefore begged--finding my father so determined--that my friend might be present during the operation to give me courage.

This was a.s.sented to, and my friend was called into the parlour, looking pale and trembling, as if she fancied herself guilty of the pain about to be inflicted on me. She remained stationary in front of me, with a look of sweet commiseration in her face, but without uttering a word.

Once or twice I thought she was going to speak, but she checked herself, and then I noticed a struggle going on within her, as if she would have said, "Ought I not to prevent this operation, and openly confess that what my friend has seen, is not an hallucination, but a reality; a phenomenon belonging to my const.i.tution? But, no; I dare not."

This was how I read the expression of her face. However, the operation pa.s.sed over with far less pain than I had expected, when, oh, wonderful!

on looking up again at the face of my friend, who was standing motionless as a statue, I perceived once more her double, not this time as usual, standing behind her and imitating her att.i.tude, but pacing up and down the room with rapid steps and wringing her hands, as if in despair.

Feeling somewhat weak from loss of blood, I forbore to cry out, but my wild looks attracted the attention of my father and the doctor to the spot my eyes were fixed upon, when, following the direction of my eyes, both suddenly started in extreme terror, such as I have never seen expressed before or since upon the faces of any two of the stronger s.e.x.

The doctor halted in tying on the bandage, and trembled like an aspen, while my father staggered and fell against the wall. For some minutes not a word was spoken, when my friend probably guessing the cause of our alarm, suddenly turned her head in the direction of their gaze, when the apparition instantly vanished. Each looked at the other, and the doctor declared that such a case had never before occurred in all his experience, nor would he have believed it had he had other testimony than that of his own eyes.

My friend then, her eyes filled with tears, begged of us all present to keep the matter a secret, and not to publish it throughout the village.

Upon being questioned concerning the phenomenon, it appeared that what we had all seen was a reality, having as she alleged been seen by others before. She said that she was not conscious of its presence, save by the looks of consternation she saw depicted on the faces of others; that she had no control over the apparition, as it would appear and disappear without her knowledge, and that she had never seen it herself but once--in the looking-gla.s.s--when it caused her such a preternatural horror that she never afterwards used a looking-gla.s.s without a shudder.

This phenomenon in her nature, moreover, made her very unhappy, as on this account people used to shun her, considering the apparition as the work of the Evil One, and deeming her guilty of some fearful crime, for such a judgment ever to be permitted to persecute her.

The doctor and my father, their first surprise once over, attempted to console her, a.s.suring her that they neither of them conceived her capable of anything like a crime, recommending her to keep quiet and not to worry herself on that account.

The doctor, to console her, further promised to keep her secret; but, in spite of his earnest a.s.surances that he would not breathe a word of it to mortal man, a pamphlet appeared shortly afterwards in the doctor's own name, announcing a new form of contagious nervous disease, in which the visual organs of a healthy individual might become so affected by contact with a person suffering from hallucinations as to cause him to see or fancy he sees the object reflected on the retina of the patient by his diseased imagination. An instance of this was given as having occurred in the village, and though the names of the parties concerned were not given in full, the neighbours had no doubt as to whom was meant by C---- F----.

The pamphlet made some stir at the time, and poor Claribel, my bashful and retiring friend, found herself made the lion of the season, and pestered past all endurance by anxious inquiries and impertinent visits from strangers, who came from far, hoping to have their curiosity gratified by a re-appearance of the spectre. If such was their object in calling, and it undoubtedly was, they one and all of them went away terribly disappointed, for not in one single case did the apparition vouchsafe to manifest itself.

Nevertheless, these continued visits from strangers to one so shy and retired as my friend, made her excessively nervous, and were beginning to undermine her health, which, the doctor perceiving, he gave instant orders that she should receive no visits but those of her most intimate friends.

Visitors still continued to call for some little time afterwards, but were refused admittance on the plea of my friend's delicate health, and their visits grew fewer and farther between, till at length they ceased altogether, and Claribel's health began to improve.

As everything has an end, even the gossip of a little village, so in time people grew tired, both of hearing or retailing what they had heard and retailed so often before, till at length n.o.body believed a word about the apparition; and because they could not explain the cause of the phenomenon, hushed their minds to sleep by calling it imposture, delusion, ignorant credulity, and the like.

The ghost had never appeared to them or to those who had taken so much trouble as to come from afar on purpose to see it, and the deduction was that as the spirit had refused to manifest itself to such respectable people as these, it was not likely that it had ever vouchsafed to make its appearance to anyone, so the affair was settled.

Time rolled on, and both my friend and I were promoted from pupils to teachers in our school. The gossip of the village had long ceased; in fact, Claribel's spiritual tormentor had discontinued its visits now for so long that she began to hope that they had ceased for ever.

Claribel was now fast ripening into womanhood, and found herself no longer shunned and whispered about as a person guilty of some horrible crime which had called down the just vengeance of Heaven upon her, but pa.s.sed by like any other, without allusion to the past; nay, more, she began to be courted by people in general, being known as a young woman of most excellent character. Being of an extremely prepossessing appearance, it was natural that she should be made a mark for all the young men of the village to discharge their amorous glances at, and she soon found herself surrounded by a crowd of swains who talked soft nonsense to her, and who would fain make her believe that they were dying with love for her.

Claribel, however, turned a deaf ear to them all. She was not a girl to be wooed by soft nonsense; indeed, you would have said she was a girl not likely to marry at all, she was so retired and showed such indifference to the conversation of young men, and took no pains whatever to set herself off to advantage in their eyes. Nevertheless this did not deter admirers from flocking around her. In fact, I rather think her coldness and apparent negligence of dress and general personal appearance rather incited them the more. I have called her indifferent to personal appearance; not that she was not scrupulously clean and neat; no one could be more so. But there she was content to remain.

She cared not to deck herself out with bows and ribbons, by the wearing of trumpery jewellery, or by any exaggerated fashion of wearing her hair. It is just this simplicity in woman which attracts most men, and it is natural enough that it should do so, as it argues a certain forgetfulness of self, a modest and unselfish nature, which is the basis of every womanly virtue, and therefore to be sought after in a wife.

Foolish women imagine that men are to be caught by being run after. They therefore spare no expense in their toilet, study arts and graces, and omit nothing which they think ought to captivate the opposite s.e.x; but as they too often over-step the bounds of modesty, their flimsy designs are seen through, and they find themselves laughed at by those they had hoped to make their prey.

Claribel had known such women in her time, and pitied rather than despised them, for there was nothing harsh in her nature. She was often quizzed in her turn by many a jimp-waisted hoyden for being a dowdy, but she would pa.s.s by their remarks with a good-humoured smile, and say little, for she was of few words.

Our school was now well filled with pupils, who, one and all, grew most attached to my young friend--to both of us in fact--but I rather think that she was the favourite.

There was not a person in or out of the school that could say a word against Claribel Falkland; there was something so inoffensive, so modest, and, at the same time, winning about her; such consideration for others, such a looking out of herself, if I may so term it. Then she had the knack of teaching--a rare gift--and was as mild and patient as a lamb, thus endearing all hearts towards her.

One day when giving a lesson in geography to her cla.s.s (this was about a year after the last apparition of the spectre) I, who was giving a lesson in arithmetic to some younger children in the opposite corner of the schoolroom, was suddenly startled by a scream of surprise from the girls of my friend's cla.s.s.

"Look! look! oh, just look, Miss Sykes," they cried in terror, "look, _there are two Miss Falklands_!"

I raised my eyes at the cry, and saw to my dismay, my friend's old tormentor--the double--behind her, as usual, and imitating her action, my friend being at that moment in the act of pointing to a map. I walked across the room to my friend, hoping to drive away the spectre in so doing, but it remained some minutes longer before it entirely disappeared.

I caught the eye of my friend, who looked mournfully at me, and added in a low tone of voice, as I pa.s.sed her, "Is it not provoking? Could anything be more annoying?"

I did not tell the schoolgirls that I myself saw the figure, and tried to laugh them out of a "silly fancy," as I called it, fearing that I might be called upon as a witness, should this report reach the ears of the school-mistress, and it might prejudice folks against my friend as a teacher, so I affected harshness, and said I begged I should hear no more of such stuff, and the affair dropped for the time; but now that the double had recommenced its visits, it came frequently, and always in cla.s.s time, to my friend's great discomfiture.

Of course, there was no getting out of it now. The school-mistress was called, and saw the same thing; and I myself was obliged to see it with the rest. The school-mistress was very much bewildered, as well she might be. She declared she did not know what to make of it. She could hardly bring herself to think that it was a messenger of good, and Miss Falkland's character was so unimpeachable that she could still less believe that anything bad should be permitted to torment her. In fact, she did not know what to think, so she called for the rector of the parish, that he might speak with the apparition; and if it should prove an evil one, to exorcise it.

The rector came, but being disappointed in seeing the spectre, came a second, third, and fourth time, with the like success, till at length he went away in a huff, and begged they would trouble him no more.

One Sunday, however, as the rector was in the middle of his sermon, his eyes being fixed on our school, we noticed him suddenly turn pale and tremble. He was unable to go on with his sermon. I followed his eyes, and found, as I half expected, my friend and her double seated close together. The girls shrieked and started, and a commotion was being made in the church; so much so, that Claribel was obliged to get up and walk out, her double following close at her heels.