Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1

by B. L. Farjeon

The effect of these words upon Mrs. Preedy was extraordinary. No sooner had they escaped her lodger’s lips than she started from her chair, upsetting her glass of gin in her excitement, and, pulling him into the room, shut the door behind him. Then she opened the door of the little cupboard in which the servant slept, and called softly:

“Becky!” and again, “Becky! Becky!”

The girl must have been a sound sleeper, for even when her mistress stepped to her bedside, and passed her hand over her face, she did not move or speak. Returning to the kitchen, Mrs. Preedy closed the door of the sleeping closet, and said to Richard Manx:

“Look ’ere, young man, I don’t want none of your nonsense, and, what’s more, I won’t stand none!” And instantly took the heart out of her defiance by crying, in an appealing tone: “Do you want to ruin me?”

“What think you of me?” asked Richard Manx, in return. “No, I wish not to ruin. But attend. You call your mind back to—a—one week from now. It is Wednesday then—it is Wednesday now. I sit up in my garret in the moon. I think—I smoke. Upon my ear strikes a sound. I hear scratching, moving. Where? At my foot? No. In my room? No; I can nothing see. Where, after that? In this house? Who can say? In the next to this? Ah! I think of what is there done, three months that are past. My blood—that is it—turn cold. I cannot, for a some time, move. You tell me, you, that there is no—a—man, or—a—woman, or—a—child in the apartment under-beneath where I sit. I am one myself in that room—no wife, no—a—child. I speak myself to—I answer myself to. No— I am not—a—right. Something there is that to me speaks. The wind, the infernal—like a voice, it screams, and whistles, and what you call, sobs. That is it. Like a child, or a woman, or a man for mercy calling! Ah! it make my hair to rise. Listen you. It speaks once more again!”

It was the wind in the streets that was moaning and sobbing; and during the pause, a flash of lightning darted in, causing Richard Manx to start back with the manner of a man upon whom divine vengeance had suddenly fallen. It was followed, in a little while, by a furious bursting of thunder, which shook the house. They listened until the echoes died away, and even then the spirit of the sound remained in their ears with ominous portent.

“It is an angry night,” said Richard Manx. “I will—a—continue what I was saying. It is Wednesday of a week past. I in my garret sit and I smoke. I hear the sound. It is what you call—a—secret. To myself I think there is in that house next to this the blood of a man murdered. Why shall there not be in this house, to-morrow that rises, the blood of one other man murdered. And that man! Who shall it be? Myself—I. So I rouse my courage up, and descend from my garret in the moon to the door of the street. Creeping—is that so, your word?—creeping after me a spirit comes—not for me to see, not for me to touch—but to hear with my ears. All is dark. In the passage appear you, and ask me what? I tell you, and you laugh—but not laugh well, it is like a cry—and you say, it is—a fancy; it is nothing I hear. And you, with hands so”—(clasping his hands together, somewhat tragically)—“beg of me not to any speak of what I hear. I consent; I say, I will not of it speak.”

“And you ’aven’t?” inquired Mrs. Preedy, anxiously.

Richard Manx laid his hand on his breast. “On my honour, no; I speak not of it. I think myself, ‘The lady of the house is—a—right. I hear only—a—fancy. I will not trouble. I will let to-morrow come.’ It come, and another to-morrow, and another, and still another. Nothing I hear. But to-night—again! I am smoking myself in bed. Be not afraid—I shall not put your house in a fire. It would not be bad. You are what they call insured?” Mrs. Preedy nodded. “Listen you—comes the rain. Ah—and the wind. God in heaven! that fire-flash!”

It blinded them for a moment or two. Then, after the briefest interval, pealed the thunder, with a crash which almost deafened them. Instinctively, Richard Manx drew nearer to Mrs. Preedy, and she also moved closer to him. At such times as this, when nature appears to be warring against mortals, the human craving for companionship and visible, palpable sympathy most strongly asserts itself.