All in the dark

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

That was the cabinet which once, in a confidential mood, poor Aunt Dinah had described as the spiritual tympanum on which above all other sympathetic pieces of furniture in the house she placed her trust. Such a spirit-gauge was in no other room of Gilroyd. It thrummed so oracularly; it cracked with such a significant emphasis.

“Oh! I see; nothing but the shadow, as I move the candle. Yes, only that and nothing more. I wish it was out of that, it is such an ugly black beast of a box.”

Now William put poor Aunt Dinah’s letter carefully back in its place, as also his diary, and locked his desk; and just then the cabinet uttered one of those cracks which poor Aunt Dinah so much respected. In the supernatural silence it actually made him bounce. It was the first time in his life he had ever fancied such things could have a meaning.

“The fire’s gone out; the room is cooling, and the wood of that ridiculous cabinet is contracting. What can it do but crack? I think I’m growing as mad as”—he was on the point of saying as poor Aunt Dinah, but something restrained him, and he respectfully substituted “as a March hare.”

Here the cabinet uttered a fainter crack, which seemed to say, “I hear you;” and William paused, expecting almost to see something sitting on the top of it, or emerging through its doors, and he exclaimed, “Such disgusting nonsense!” and he looked round the room, and over his shoulder, as he placed his keys in his pocket.

His strong tea, and his solitude, and the channel into which he had turned his thoughts; the utter silence, the recent death, and the lateness of the hour, made the disgusted philosopher rise to take the candle which had not a great deal of life left in it, and shutting the door on the cabinet, whose loquacity he detested, he got to his bed-room in a suspicious and vigilant state; and he was glad when he got into his room. William locked his door on the inside. He lighted his candles, poked his fire, violently wrested his thoughts from uncomfortable themes, sat himself down by the fire and thought of Violet Darkwell. “Oh that I dare think it was for my sake she refused Vane Trevor!” and so on, building many airy castles, and declaiming eloquently over his work. The old wardrobe in the room made two or three warning starts and cracks, but its ejaculations were disrespectfully received.

“Fire away, old fool, much I mind you! A gentlemanlike cabinet may be permitted, but a vulgar cupboard, impudence.”

So William got to his bed, and fell asleep: in no mood I think to submit to a five years’ wait, if a chance of acceptance opened; and in the morning he was astonished.

Again, my reader’s incredulity compels me to aver in the most solemn manner that the particulars I now relate of William Maubray’s history are strictly true. He is living to depose to all. My excellent friend Doctor Drake can certify to others, and as I said, the rector of the parish, to some of the oddest. Upon this evidence, not doubting, I found my narrative.