CHAPTER XI
"REST, REST, PERTURBÉD SPIRIT!"
I think it was because such lighter incidents as those that I have described in the two preceding chapters were freely introduced among more weighty happenings, and thus gave a certain measure of relief from them, that we managed to fill out our term in the House on the Hill. Absurd and impish as the general run of these performances was, there was still an element of what I may almost call intimacy in them—a sort of appeal, as it were, to look upon the whole thing as a joke; which, while they caused us amazement, brought us no real alarm. Much as has been attributed to the influence of fear, I believe curiosity to be the stronger passion; and few days passed without a fillip being given to our interest by some new absurdity, while events of graver suggestion were few and far between.
I need not say that the affair which had been most sinister and disquieting was the coming to my wife of the evident apparition of Deeming. This visitation had been so awful and unearthly that by tacit agreement we had not spoken of it since the afternoon of its occurrence:—yet I had never been able to get it out of my mind, and every day I spent in town was darkened by forebodings of what might happen at home before my return. Each night as I came in sight of the house I looked anxiously for the figure of my wife standing on the veranda to welcome me, and each night I drew a breath of relief as I saw in her serene and smiling face that my apprehensions had been vain; and so I came by degrees to dismiss my fears in the conviction that that uneasy spirit had been laid at last.
But this comforting assurance suddenly failed me, when, one evening about two weeks after the ghost's first coming, I read in my wife's eyes that it had appeared again. Yet, greatly to my relief, I saw no fear in them, but, rather, an expression of pity. Her manner was quiet and composed, but I was sure she had been weeping.
"Yes," she said, in reply to my anxious inquiries; "Deeming has been here, and I have been crying. Oh, that poor tortured, despairing soul!—he is in Hell, and one infinitely worse than that we were taught to believe in; a Hell where conscience never sleeps, and where he sees what he might have been—and now never can be! He frightened me terribly at first, but I know he tried not to do so, and now I am glad he came, for I believe I have helped him, although I cannot understand how. I feel weak and faint, for I have been under a great strain, but I shall be better now that you have come home—and I know, too, that I shall never see him again. Come into my room, and I will tell you all about it:"—and when I had done so, and had tried, with some success, to quiet the agitation that, in spite of her words, still possessed her, she told me the amazing story of her experience.
"It was about eleven o'clock this forenoon," she began, "and I was alone in the house—in the kitchen. I had been airing the house, and all the doors and windows were open, although the screens were in place. All at once I heard the back gate creak as it always does when it opens, and 'Schneider' and 'Tokio'" (such were the names of our two dogs) "who were loose in the yard, barking at somebody. I supposed it was the butcher or the grocery man and looked out the back door—and just then the dogs came tearing by with their tails between their legs, and disappeared around the corner of the house. The next instant I saw a man standing just inside the gate. He was not looking at me, but his eyes seemed to be following the flight of the dogs; then they turned to meet mine, and I saw that it was Deeming. I shut the back door instantly and locked it—then ran to the front door and fastened that; I wanted to close and bolt the windows, too, but did not dare do so, for I was afraid I might look out of any one of them and see him. I prayed to God that he might go away, but he did not. I stood in the hall and saw him move by outside the window of your room. By-and-by he passed the dining-room window on the other side of me as I stood there, having gone completely around the house. But he did not look in.
"I did not see anything more of him for some time, and I began to think that he had given up trying to communicate with me, and had gone away again. I finally went into the bedroom and peeped out into the veranda. He was there, standing near and facing the door! He did not seem to notice me, and I watched him for some time. He was dressed just as he had been before, and looked the same; but I could see him much more clearly than the first time, and if I had not known who it was, I should have thought it was a living man.
"I don't know how it was, but as I stood watching him I found that I wasn't afraid of him at all. He looked so sad and pitiful, and stood there so patiently, that I began to feel as I might toward some poor beggar; he seemed just like one, waiting for something to eat. Then I thought how he had pleaded the other day for assistance, and how I had turned him away—and although it was like death to face him again, I went into the hall and opened the door.
"The screen door was closed and locked, and we looked at each other through it. I could see every detail of the figure's face and dress as it stood there in the bright sunlight:—it was within three feet of me, and it was Deeming's without a shadow of a doubt.
"I don't know how long I stood there. I seemed to be in another world, and in a strange atmosphere which he may have brought with him. I had to make a strong effort, but finally succeeded in seeing and thinking clearly, and as he only looked appealingly at me and seemed not to be able to say anything, I was the first to speak.
"'I know who you are, this time,' I said. 'I told you never to come here again. Why have you done so?'
"'Madame,' he replied, 'I have come for help.'
"'I told you the other day I could do nothing for you,' I said.
"'But you can, if you will,' he answered, 'and there is nobody else I can reach. Don't be afraid of me—I won't hurt you. I need some one to show me Christian charity, and I thought you were kind and would help me.'"
"'Christian charity!'" I exclaimed, interrupting the recital for the first time: "was that what he said?"
"Those were his exact words," said my wife; "and it seemed almost blasphemy for such a creature to use them."
"They seem to me," I commented, "more like one of those stock phrases of which nearly every man has some, of one sort or another. Do you remember, in the letter Deeming wrote to you from the jail when you could not induce Miss Rounsfell to come to see him, how he said he was sorry you did not find her 'as Christianlike as yourself?' It may be a small point, but this appeal to your 'Christian charity' seems to confirm your belief that it was the apparition of Deeming that made it to you to-day. But what happened then?"
"Well," said she, taking up the thread of her story, "while he was saying this he kept his eyes on mine—great, pleading eyes like those of a dog:—they made me think he was trying to say things for which he could not find words, and—I don't know why—I began to feel sorry for him.
"'I don't understand at all what you mean,' I said. 'Your awful crimes horrify me, and I can hardly bear to look at you. Why should you distress me as you do?'
"'I don't want to distress you,' he replied, 'but I must get out of this horrible place!'
"'What do you mean by "this horrible place"? I cannot understand you.'
"'I can't make you understand,' he said. 'They won't let me.' I don't know what he meant by 'they,' but I thought it was some beings that controlled him, though I could see nothing. Then he went on in a long, confused talk which I could only partly follow.
"The substance of what he said was this, as nearly as I could gather it. His body was buried in quicklime in a criminal's unmarked grave; I think he said under the wall of the jail, but of this I am not sure—and as long as a trace of it remained he was tied down to the scenes of his crime and punishment. If he could only find some one who would pity him, and show it by 'an act of Christian charity'—he used the expression again—his term of suffering here would be shortened, and he could 'go on;' that was the way he put it, although he did not seem to know what it meant. His talk was vague and rambling, and seemed to me very incoherent; but his distress was plain enough, and when he stopped speaking (which was not for some time, for he kept going back and repeating as if he were trying to make his meaning clearer) I had lost all feeling except that here was a creature in great trouble, and that I ought to help him if I could.
"When he had finished I asked him how I could show him the 'Christian charity' he had spoken about.
"'By giving me something,' he replied, 'and being sorry for me when you give it.'
"'I am sorry for you,' I said. 'Isn't that enough?'
"'No,' he answered, 'that isn't enough. You might have done it if you had bought the soap from me the other day.'
"'So it is money you want?' I asked.
"'Yes,' he said, 'money will do, or anything else that you value.'
"'Will you stay where you are until I can get some?' I asked:—and he said, yes, he would stay where he was.
"So I went into my room and took some money from my purse, and went back and showed it to him; there was a half-crown, a shilling and some coppers—there they are, on the dressing table beside you."
"So you did not give them to him, after all?" I inquired, taking up the coins and examining them.
"Oh, yes, I did," replied my wife; "and that is the strangest part of the whole thing.
"As I said, I showed him the money and asked him if that would do; and he said it would.
"Then I said: 'I am not going to open this door. How can I give these coins to you?'
"'You don't need to open it,' he answered. 'There is a hat rack there behind you, with a marble shelf in it—put them on that shelf.'
"I stepped back to the hat rack and put the money on the shelf, watching him all the time. I glanced at the coins an instant as I laid them down, and when I looked at the door again there was nobody there. I instantly turned to the hat rack again, but the shelf was bare—the coins had disappeared, too!
"I rushed to the door to unlock it and run into the street, for I thought Deeming had got into the house:—but just as I had my hand on the key I heard his voice in front of me.
"'Don't be afraid,' the voice said. 'I haven't moved.'
"'But how did you get the money?' I asked.
"'You wouldn't understand if I should tell you,' replied the voice.
"'But I can't see you!' I exclaimed.
"'No,' said the voice, 'and you never will again. I have gone on.'
"'But you are not going away with my money, are you?' I asked. 'Do you need it now?'
"'No,' the voice replied, 'I do not need it. You gave it to me because you pitied me—I have no more use for it.'
"'Can you give it back to me?' I asked.
"'I have given it back,' said the voice. 'Look on the hat rack.'
"I heard something jingle behind me, and as I turned around I saw the coins all lying on the shelf again."
The conclusion of this prodigious history found me in a state very nearly approaching stupefaction. It was not so much the facts themselves which it embodied as the suggestions they inspired that appalled me, and the glimpse they seemed to afford of mysteries the human race has for ages shrinkingly guessed at, chilled me to the marrow of my bones. "Can such things be?" was the question I asked myself again and again as I struggled to regain my composure:—and although this experience seemed a natural and fitting sequence in the drama that had been enacted in that house under my own eyes, I am free to say I could not on the instant credit it.
My wife detected my hesitation at once, and said:
"I see you cannot believe what I have told you, and I do not wonder at it:—but it is true, for all that."
"I know you think so," I replied; "and in view of the very many other strange events you have taken part in—and I with you in a number of them—I ought to have no doubts. But this is the most staggering thing I ever heard of. Are you sure you were not dreaming?"
"Well," she said, with a laugh, "I am not in the habit of dreaming at eleven o'clock on a bright, sunny morning, and when I have the care of the house on my hands. And then, the dogs:—do you think they were dreaming, too?"
"Ah, yes!" I exclaimed; "what about the dogs?"
"I told you," she replied, "how they ran to the gate, barking, and then suddenly turned tail and rushed away in a panic as soon as they saw what was there. When Deeming had gone, I went out to look after them, but for a long time I could not find them. I called and I coaxed, but to no purpose. Finally I discovered them out in the farthest corner of the paddock, under the thick bushes, crowded together in a heap, and trembling as though they had been whipped. I had to crawl in and drag them out, but I couldn't induce them to come near the house; at last I had to carry them in, and all the afternoon they have stuck close to me as though they felt the need of protection. It is only half an hour ago that I got them into their kennels and chained them up. You had better go out and see them."
I did so, and found one kennel empty, and both dogs lying close together (as the length of their chains allowed them to do) in the straw of the other. I had never seen them do this before, since each was very jealous of intrusion by the other upon his quarters, and I was impressed by the circumstance. The poor brutes still showed unmistakable evidences of terror, whimpered and whined and licked my hand as I petted them, and set up a concerted and agonized howl of protest when I left them. There was no doubt whatever that they had been horribly frightened—if not by the ghost of Deeming, by what?—it was certainly no merely physical agitation that their actions showed.