Wastralls: A Novel

by C. A. Dawson Scott

"Why Leadville, whatever's the matter..." she was beginning when something about him, some departure from the normal, checked her words; and she perceived that, though he had come into the room with head thrust forward in everyday fashion, his aspect was unusual. His features were set and his eyes had an inward look. It was as if something behind his eyes and not they themselves, were looking out. He was staring across the room and his glance had focused itself on the wall behind Mrs. Tom. She had thought he saw her but, in a moment, she realized her mistake. He was not aware of her, in fact was looking through her. To him she was unsubstantial as the sea-mist, nay as the warm air of the kitchen. His was the illumination of a dream. The objects he saw were not the actual furnishings of the kitchen but the figments of a mind asleep.

Mrs. Tom, who had seen children walking in their sleep, recognized the look. It was as if an intelligence, banished to some remote cell of being, had seized the opportunity of slumber to assert itself. The body moved, but unconsciously and as if under a spell. It obeyed, but clumsily and as if it had a difficulty in interpreting the wishes of this new master.

She was not alarmed but at a loss. The children 'walked' when they had eaten too many raw blackberries or had sat overlong at their lessons or been frightened; and Leadville, 'poor sawl too,' was only a big child. He had had a shock and this was the result. She wondered what she had better do? A little maid could be led back to bed and tucked in again and left, but Leadville? She decided to wait and see. Perhaps, in a minute or two, he would go of himself.

Meanwhile the sleep-walker, after standing by the door for some moments, had crossed the room and seated himself on the window-bench. Mrs. Tom was tired and very drowsy. Reassured as to his needs and purpose, she found it difficult to remain awake. Her lids were closing, her mind was drifting from the contemplation of his dark and motionless figure and she was nodding off again, when the elbow on which she was leaning, slipped. Jarred into wakefulness she glanced hastily at Leadville. For a moment she had been oblivious of him. She hoped to find that he had gone quietly back to bed, but no, he was still sitting in the moonlight.

To Mrs. Tom it seemed either that the moonlight was particularly bright or that she saw by it more clearly than usual, for not only was Byron's figure clear and sharp but his features were darkly visible. She could see that he was interested in something which was taking place on the other side of the room, that his eyes moved as if watching some one who, to Mrs. Tom, was invisible.

"Old chap see something," she thought and, looking at the blank space about the hearth, felt her flesh creep. Of a folk who accept the supernatural, the unusual, without doubt or question, she took it for granted that Leadville in his sleep-walking condition would have powers to which she could not pretend. That what he saw he had first created, did not occur to her. What moved about the hearth was, she believed, actually there; and she was intensely, tremulously interested. Who could it be? Sabina?

She had at first supposed that, unnerved by his wife's sudden and unexpected death and with his self-control relaxed by sleep, he had not been able to resist the inclination to wander restlessly about the house. She had had to admit, however, that there was more in this sleep-walking than mere shock and restlessness. Byron was conscious in a peculiar way, conscious of things and events. He saw something and this something or somebody, was moving about as if engaged on a domestic task. Could Sabina, having put off mortality, be here in the spirit; was her wraith haunting the rooms familiar to her, viewlessly busy in the old way? Mrs. Tom strained her eyes in a pathetic attempt to catch a glimpse of the dear long-known features and full figure, but no spectral greyness lightened the heavy obscurity of that part of the room and nothing moved, nothing that is, that she could see. She turned back presently to Leadville and it seemed to her that either the moonlight was brighter or she more observant, for now his face had grown so clear to her, its very expression could be seen. She looked at him and then began hurriedly to hope she had been mistaken and that the unseen form he was watching was not Sabina's for, if it were, how should his gaze be at once so furtive and so menacing? What did it mean?

If, at the suggestion of an unseen companion her flesh had crept, what was her state when in Leadville's eye she read a threat? Under her the little bed shook until she feared lest she might attract his attention.

She did not know that to him she was the invisible occupant of the room. His subconscious mind was reconstructing a scene out of the past in which she had no part and he was therefore entirely unaware of her. For some time he continued to follow the movements of the unseen person by the fireplace and, gradually, his intent look changed to a smile, a smile of satisfaction. He had learned what he would know and he was smiling to himself over it, smiling after such a fashion that the watcher shrank back and back until she was against the wall. This was a 'whisht' old house and she was alone in it with a dead woman and with this man.

Her thoughts, hitherto vague as mist, distilled a clear drop ... 'a dead woman and why dead?'