The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women Part 29

She looked disquietingly excited and my own head swam. "That awful pressing in!" What did she . . . what could she . . . mean? A sense of dreadful menace almost stifled me, and I felt utterly estranged; but something had to be said.

"When are your theatricals to be?" I asked. "I didn't know you were acting."

"Acting?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"

"The nurse tells me she often hears you rehearsing in the night."

She blushed crimson. "Oh, that!" she said. "Oh, yes! You see, I have a silly habit of reciting poetry aloud to myself, and it made me feel self-conscious to know she had overheard me, so I said I was rehearsing for some theatricals."

"I see," I said; but my heart sank at hearing her lie.

Then we spoke of other things, but we were both hopelessly preoccupied, and there was no life in our talk. It was almost forced, and I noted that nearly everything that Margaret said was in inverted commas. Scarcely anything pa.s.sed her lips that was not a quotation. I had already observed that the more tired, strained or preoccupied she seemed, the more this was the case. When her vitality was lowered it was, to use her own words, as though she had "no opinion, emotion or impulse" of her own, but was merely a thoroughfare for the thoughts of others as though nothing remained to hold the fort except memory.

I think it was three days later that the nurse, of her own accord, came to report to me again, and told me she considered her patient increasingly nervous and depressed. To my enquiry as to how Miss Clewer was sleeping, she answered: "Very little now." Adding ominously, "And if you ask me, sir, I don't think she wants to go to sleep."

"She's given up the theatricals anyhow, hasn't she?" I asked, in as casual a voice as I could command.

"Given them up, sir? No, I wish to goodness' sake she would. I really can scarcely bear to hear it; the way she screams out her part has thoroughly got on my nerves. As often as I come back along that pa.s.sage, she's going through it. I know some of her part by heart myself. I don't believe I'll ever be able to forget the queer words."

"What are the words you overhear her saying?" I asked, as indifferently as I could.

"Saying? You wouldn't call it saying if you'd heard her, sir, it's more like yelling. As I was saying the other day, you'd never think such a gentle lady could produce such a terrifying voice. The words that she most often repeats are: 'Let me in! Give way! What can I do without a body? What use are you making of your body? I want it! You clear out! I must be lodged! I must be lodged! I must be lodged!' And the third time she repeats 'I must be lodged', her voice rises to a screech. But whatever's the matter, sir? You've come over as white as a sheet!"

Murmuring that I felt faint and must get some brandy, I told her I would see her in the evening, and left the room.

My legs almost gave way as I went upstairs, and directly I reached my bedroom I turned the key in the lock, though what it was I thought might thus be debarred, G.o.d only knows.

With shaking hands, I opened the book I had been reading in bed the night before.

It was a bound copybook, filled with the faded brown of a spidery sixteenth-century writing. Margaret had long given me the freedom of her library, and on a high shelf I had found a ma.n.u.script book a sort of irregular journal kept by an ancestress of hers, also a Margaret Clewer. I had read it far into the night. It was all interesting, and by the final heart-broken entry I had been most vividly and painfully impressed.

Were certain words really as, with horror, I remembered them, or was my memory deceiving my disturbed nerves?

Trembling, I turned the leaves until I came to the words: So she is dead! Elspeth, our shame, lyes dead. That I should live to thank G.o.d that my own child be laid in the church-yarde! A sennight yesterday since they carryed her home after her falle from her horse. A sennight of torment unimagined to us all. The pa.s.sing of her eville spirit has been a horror past beliefe. The drawing nigh of Death had no softening effect on her violent, eville greedy spirit. Her hold on lyfe was terrible. Breath by breath it was torne from her shattered bodye. So her fierce spirit clung to her beautiful broken bodye, G.o.d helpe us all! Could any Death be deep enough to make me to forget how with her last breaths she cryde out: "I won't dye! I won't dye! There is still so much to do! Some way I'll get back! I must get back! My spirit is so unquenched! I must find another bodye. I must be lodged! I must be lodged! I must be lodged!"

The long-dead woman's ma.n.u.script slipped from my hand and I struggled to think. Even last night the words of the dying changeling daughter had made me shiver. Now, after what the nurse had quoted, they seared my mind. Elspeth Clewer! I remembered the grey, uncommunicative grave beneath the yew tree. Its bleak reticence had impressed my imagination on my first visit to the churchyard, and now, to my mind's eye, it was forever a.s.sociated with Margaret's prostrate, writhing body.

G.o.d grante that she lye stille! G.o.d grante that she lye stille! I s.n.a.t.c.hed at a faint, fluttering hope. Perhaps Margaret was familiar with the journal I had found. If so, its grim contents would be very likely to haunt her. Might not what the nurse mistook for rehearsing have been her quoting it in disturbed sleep?

That evening I found her pale and wild-eyed. I told her of my discovery of the diary and asked if she had ever read it. She disclaimed all knowledge, and this time I knew she spoke the truth. I said it gave a strange account of an ancestress of hers, an Elspeth Clewer. Was it my fancy, or did she draw in her breath at the name?

"Oh! Does it?" she said. "Yes, I've heard of her. Though she died before she was twenty-three, she's the only celebrated member of the Clewer family, for she crowded her short life with every imaginable vice and crime. I believe she was an absolute mythical monster of violence and cruelty: but, as I have often told you, I really don't take the faintest interest in my ancestors."

Two days later, as I sat at breakfast, the front-door bell was so violently pulled that I went to the door myself. The faithful Rebecca stood there, her face mottled with agitation. "Oh, sir! She's been and gone and bolted!"

"Miss Clewer?" I gasped.

"No, sir," she gabbled breathlessly. "That yere nurse, been and gone and offed it left my poor lamb with no word to no one. Yes, when I comes along this mornin' I finds my lady deep asleep, and, if you please, on the floor there's a tray with broken pieces of cup and saucer and Benger's food slopped all over the carpet. Just dropped out of Nurse's hand, it must have been. And she couldn't be found nowhere; clean gone she was run off and left all her things behind her. The garden boy, he tells me he seen her tearing round the garden like as though the devil were after her. I looks in at the station, and they said she'd been there a full hour before the first train went, and looked that queer without no hat nor nothing. And my lady she looks to go to your heart this morning she says she calls to mind asking Nurse to fetch her a cup of Benger's and then she thinks she must have fallen asleep, since she doesn't remember no more."

Incensed with the nurse, I rang up the London a.s.sociation from which she came and instructed them to telephone directly she arrived. Full of foreboding I hurried to the Manor House. I found Margaret walking up and down in the garden, her face drawn and set.

"I'm sorry I've frightened your nurse away," she said bitterly.

"Frightened her? You!" I tried to laugh.

"So it seems. A well-trained nurse who drops her tray and flies from the house must surely be a little upset."

"She must have taken leave of her senses," I said dryly. "Fortunately I know of an admirable one who happens to be free now."

"No, thank you. No more nurses for me! I can't say I've found the last one very rea.s.suring. No, I've just telegraphed to lots of my friends to come down. I've been too unsociable lately." She spoke defiantly, and I knew it would be no use to argue.

That afternoon I was rung up by the matron of the Nursing a.s.sociation. Nurse Newson had never turned up, but on enquiry it was found she had gone to her mother, whose telephone number I was given.

"Mrs Newson speaking," answered a painstakingly genteel voice.

I explained who I was, stating that I wished to speak to her daughter, whose amazing behaviour demanded explanation.

The voice let itself go, and unmistakable relish in a crisis was plain through its agitation.

"Oh, sir! I'm afraid you can't speak to my daughter. She's bad in bed, and doctor says she's suffering from shock and mustn't be disturbed. Oh, sir! Whatever did happen to make her take on so, such a sensible, steady girl as she is? She's in ever such a state! I never did see anyone so upset before, and I can't get from her what it is she's so scared on at least nothing that you would call coherent. And, please sir, she says she's terribly sorry to have let you down, but she couldn't have stayed on not for any consideration."

Feeling no sympathy, I snapped out: "I never heard of such behaviour. A nurse abandoning a case in the middle of the night? She must be hopelessly hysterical. What possible excuse can she have? Her patient is the most charming young lady."

"Yes, she says the young lady she was engaged for was ever so sweet, but Doctor I don't understand she talks so wild and when I question her, begs me not to ask, but wasn't there another young lady?"

Exasperated, I banged the receiver down.

It was necessary to go to the Manor House to give the address to which the nurse's luggage was to be sent. I would have gone in, but two cars were just unloading their freight of visitors. Loud voices echoed in the courtyard, and aggressively young people, brandishing tennis rackets, bounded up the steps towards their hostess, who stood in the doorway, her face resolutely gay.

With a forlorn sense of being cut off from her, and with apprehension heavy on my heart, I stole away. As I looked back at the house, gilded by the setting sun, I almost hated it for its unconcerned beauty.

Two days later I received a note in her strangely variable, but always recognizable, writing. It had no beginning: I am going away . . . I must leave at once. When you get this I shall be in the train. I could not stay here another night. Please never ask me to explain. Something unthinkably dreadful happened last night. I could never dare risk having anyone to stay here again. Not possibly.

Neither can I live here by myself.

I don't understand; but, believe me, it's fearful, and I must go. Oh, G.o.d! There are more things in heaven and earth!

I'll write.

Margaret Clewer She went abroad, and I was glad to know her gone. If life became unutterably dreary, at least my nightmare fears were in abeyance. Naturally I wrote begging for an explanation of her note, but none came. I had many letters from her; but, except for the one line, "I am so glad I came away," they told me nothing. They were merely brilliant descriptions of her travels little more than inspired Baedekers, with scarcely a word to show we had ever been great friends and shared an unacknowledged dread. I wrote to Rebecca to enquire after her mistress's health. Her reply said her young lady seemed well enough, but appeared restless and as though not really enjoying the full life she led.

As the leaves fluttered down, till winter lay like iron over the land, the magical days of that long summer began to a.s.sume the golden haze of something dreamed. Often I would go and gaze at her empty home. I began to wonder whether I was ever to see her again. There was even a rumour that the Manor House was to be let on a long lease.

One morning, when an unusually reluctant spring had at last turned the fields to glory, I was surprised to see on an envelope bearing a London postmark the writing that always made my heart leap. I read: I find it quite impossible to keep away any longer. I feel myself irresistibly drawn home, but I shall not sleep in my old room. I shall come back Monday, but shall arrive late. Please come to luncheon Tuesday.

Margaret Clewer Coming home Monday? This was Monday. I should see her in little more than twenty-four hours. The day crept by with unbelievable slowness. To hasten tomorrow I went to bed unusually early.

In the middle of the night I woke up suddenly and with the certainty that I had been aroused by some sound. Yes, there it was again, outside the house. Small pebbles were being thrown up against my window. Expecting an emergency call, I struggled out of sleepiness and looked out of my low window. The moon was full; a tall figure stood below; a white, upturned face gleamed in the silvery-green light. It was Margaret! Her loveliness glimmered in the strange, cold light, but she looked wild, and there was desperate urgency in her voice.

"Quick, quick!" she cried. "I must have your help. I'm so frightened. Quick! Let me in! Let me in! This time I'll tell you everything!"

s.n.a.t.c.hing my overcoat, I hurried downstairs as quietly as I could for fear of waking my servant, and opened the door.

It was no dream. The white figure stood outside, arms outstretched towards me. A glorious hope leaped in my heart; but, as I advanced, something indescribable looked out of her eyes. With desperate haste her hands moved, and in a second her face was entirely concealed by the chiffon scarf in which they had swathed it.

"Too late! Too late!" she wailed in a changing voice. "Go back, go back, and for G.o.d's sake, don't dare to follow me!" The white figure sped away.

Aghast, I started in pursuit, but after a few strides, the swathed, faceless figure turned. At the torrent of words that were shrieked at me in an unknown voice, I stood transfixed, frozen with horror.

Wild, nauseated fear took possession of me. G.o.d forgive me, I renounced her. To save my soul I could not have followed another step. I stole back and, drenched in cold sweat, lay shaking on my bed. Sleep never approached me, but I felt too shattered and ill to get up at my usual hour. At ten the telephone rang. Wondering what ghastly intimation was to come, I lifted the receiver.

Margaret's lovely voice slid into my astonished ears. "It's me. Please come and see me. They tell me I'm not well." Her own lovely voice that I had not hoped to hear again. Had some monstrous dream imposed itself upon me? Almost I began to think it.

When I reached the Manor House, I asked where Miss Clewer's new room was.

"Just the same as before, sir," replied the parlour maid. "Miss Clewer did give orders for one to be prepared on the other side of the house, but as soon as she came she said she'd go back to her own room."

Rebecca lay in wait in the familiar pa.s.sage.

"Thank G.o.d you've come, Doctor," she whispered. "She seems to be wandering in her mind this morning."

I stole into the room. Margaret, strangely beautiful, but wan and fragile, lay back on a great pillow. She stretched out both hands in welcome. At once I knew that her memory held no trace of last night. She greeted me as though we met for the first time since her departure all those long months ago.

"Rebecca thinks I'm ill," she said. "But I must be a creature incapable of my own distress, because I a.s.sure you I feel quite well. And, oh! So, so glad to see my physician!"

Did I say that, after the incident of the dog, I was only once again to see Margaret in her incomparable radiance? Strange that it should have been now, when I was prepared to find her in delirium. But thus it was. Once more she seemed her original, untroubled, sparkling self.

She questioned me about all the Mosstone news and gave irresistibly funny descriptions of people she had met on her travels. All was as I first remembered her, dancing voice, lovely laughter, buoyant, bubbling talk, lightning response, showers of quotations. What had Rebecca meant by describing her as delirious?

But suddenly a change came into her eyes. She clutched at my hands and held them tight. Then she began to, what Rebecca described as, wander. Her voice was solemn.

"As the tree falls, so shall it lie! That is true, isn't it, John?"

John? I had almost forgotten my unused Christian name.

"It is true in every sort of way," she went on, "isn't it, darling? And as that tree lies, so shall it be all through the days of eternity that's true too, isn't it, John absolutely true?"

"Yes yes, of course," I soothed her.

"Oh, John," she went on. "I've just found such a lovely, lovely poem. I didn't know it before. I can't think how I could have missed it. It's by Barnefield. Just listen to the mournful magic of these two lines: "'King Pandion he is dead,

All thy friends are lapped in lead'.

"'Lapped in lead'! Doesn't that make death sound delicious and luxurious? As though to be alive were something very makeshift." She gave a little quick laugh. "'Lapped in lead lapped in lead'," she repeated, very slowly. "Oh, how lovely and peaceful and untormented! You know that would be the best thing that could happen to me, don't you? The best thing that could happen to your Me. Then your Me would be safe."

An urgent summons came, and I had to go to a distant case. Telling Rebecca on no account to leave her for a moment, and that I would get a nurse to come as soon as possible, I hurried away.

It was for a birth that I had been summoned. The baby was as reluctant to enter the world as its mother seemed disposed to leave it, and midnight had already struck when I reached home.

Through all the strain of that endless day I had been haunted by Margaret, and I intended to s.n.a.t.c.h some supper and hurry back to the Manor House. But before I had sat down the telephone rang. It was Rebecca's voice: "Come quick, come at once! Miss Margaret seems so weak, as though she couldn't scarcely breathe. I'm speaking from her room. Do-" The voice broke off; it was no longer at the mouthpiece, but I heard it cry out, in deathly terror: "Oh, G.o.d, who-" And then the telephone must have been dropped.

No further sound came through. I replaced the receiver, and after a moment's pause rang up the Exchange, in my impatience violently rattling the instrument.

"Number, please? Number, please?" expostulated the Exchange. I gave the number several times, but there was nothing to be heard beyond the intermittent ringing of an unanswered call . . . I pictured the overturned telephone lying on the floor of Margaret's room. What had happened?

Leaping into my car, I drove to the Manor House. The front door stood wide open, but no one was about. I did not meet anyone on my way to Margaret's room. The whole house was deserted.

What I saw when I approached the bed no one could attempt to describe and keep their reason. It writhed and moaned and seemed to breathe with terrible difficulty. I averted my eyes from the face, and with the automatic professional instinct to preserve life, administered an injection.

The thing on the bed gave a convulsive shudder and I heard the fast, thick breathing of some desperate struggle. Determined not to see the usurper again, I kept my eyes shut. I dared not look! Then there was silence, followed by a gentle sigh.

Something in that gentle sigh impelled me to open my eyes. Ineffable relief flowed over me. Like pure silver rising through primeval slime, the being I loved had struggled through and triumphed over the awful spiritual hideousness of that invasion. It was Margaret's face that smiled at me. Her voice came sweet but hopelessly weak.

"It's all right, darling," she breathed, and in her voice was a tenderness I had never imagined. "It's all right. I've won. It's me, your Me. Don't let me give way again. Keep me safe-"

Sure of her haven she gazed at me. Her hand clung to mine, and her lips smiled, but the strain of that final struggle had been too much for the already weakened heart. The eyelids fluttered up once or twice, as her clasp of my hand loosened. Almost inaudibly, but with an ecstasy of glimpsed peace, she breathed out the words: "'Lapped in lead lapped in lead-'" And something else I could not quite hear. I felt a last little clinging clutch at my hand, and with one or two long sighs the spirit I loved slipped from its beautiful lodging.

Some hours later I left the deserted house, and returned to the emptied world. Grat.i.tude mingled with my grief; my broken heart was at peace, for I knew her to be una.s.sailable. The long dread was at an end.

It is a desolate path I tread, but sometimes, when it seems most steep and bare, there comes, like a gentle wave washing against my tired brain, the soft a.s.suagement of her voice murmuring: "'Lapped in lead lapped in lead'." And again I hear the promise in the infinite tenderness of her whispered "darling".

What were the words I failed to hear?

I often linger round her empty home. No smoke rises from the twisted chimneys, but pigeons still flutter and croon, and the grey house I once thought so aloof seems to receive me into an atmosphere of benign peace.

The Phantom Coach.

Amelia B. Edwards.

The circ.u.mstances I am about to relate to you have truth to recommend them. They happened to myself, and my recollection of them is as vivid as if they had taken place only yesterday. Twenty years, however, have gone by since that night. During those twenty years I have told the story to but one other person. I tell it now with a reluctance that I find it difficult to overcome. All I entreat, meanwhile, is that you will abstain from forcing your own conclusions upon me. I want nothing explained away. I desire no arguments. My mind on this subject is quite made up, and having the testimony of my own senses to rely upon, I prefer to abide by it.

Well! It was just twenty years ago, and within a day or two of the end of the grouse season. I had been out all day with my gun, and had had no sport to speak of. The wind was due east; the month, December; the place, a bleak wide moor in the far north of England. And I had lost my way. It was not a pleasant place in which to lose one's way, with the first feathery flakes of a coming snowstorm just fluttering down upon the heather, and the leaden evening closing in all around. I shaded my eyes with my hand, and stared anxiously into the gathering darkness, where the purple moorland melted into a range of low hills, some ten or twelve miles distant. Not the faintest smoke-wreath, not the tiniest cultivated patch, or fence, or sheep-track, met my eyes in any direction. There was nothing for it but to walk on, and take my chance of finding what shelter I could, by the way. So I shouldered my gun again and pushed wearily forward, for I had been on foot since an hour after daybreak and had eaten nothing since breakfast.

Meanwhile, the snow began to come down with ominous steadiness, and the wind fell. After this, the cold became more intense, and the night came rapidly up. As for me, my prospects darkened with the darkening sky, and my heart grew heavy as I thought how my young wife was already watching for me through the window of our little inn parlour, and thought of all the suffering in store for her throughout this weary night. We had been married four months, and, having spent our autumn in the Highlands, were now lodging in a remote little village situated just on the verge of the great English moorlands. We were very much in love, and, of course, very happy. This morning, when we parted, she had implored me to return before dusk, and I had promised her that I would. What would I not have given to have kept my word!

Even now, weary as I was, I felt that with supper, an hour's rest, and a guide, I might still get back to her before midnight, if only guide and shelter could be found.