Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume II

by M. Y. Halidom

Fancy poor Claribel, who was like a nun in her love of solitude and retirement, having to walk out of church through a crowd of people all the way home again with a duplicate of herself following in her footsteps!

You must not suppose that the matter stopped here. The remarks of the rustics who met her on the way, the village gossip that now broke out afresh—worse than ever before—the suspicious looks she received on all sides, all contributed to mortify her; but what appeared to completely break her spirit was the sudden falling off of one half of her pupils. Of course, she could make no doubt as to the cause of this. Even the rest of the pupils, she thought, grew colder to her, and they, too, dropped off one by one, until the poor girl had not a single pupil left.

When matters arrived at this point it was hinted to her by the school-mistress that on account of the great damage this unfortunate peculiarity of hers had done the school, that it was better for her on the whole, to leave. The school-mistress added that she was aware that it was no fault of my young friend's, and it was with much regret that she was obliged to part with her; yet what could she do? She could not afford to lose all her pupils; and thus it was my poor friend lost a situation upon which she depended to begin her little savings. Much and bitterly did she weep over her cursed existence, and earnestly prayed that she might be liberated from her tormentor.

Since she had left her position as a school teacher she had led a life of such rigid retirement that it was with the greatest difficulty she could be persuaded to leave the house, even in my company, to take the air and exercise that her health required. She refused to see anyone unless it was the rector, who would occasionally call in the evening to take a dish of tea with us.

It was on one of these visits, when we were seated round the fire, conversing agreeably—the rector was relating some amusing anecdote, to which we were all listening attentively, the rector himself laughing at his own story—when suddenly we noticed that he stopped short in the middle of his laughing, turned pale, and rose from his chair.

The cause of this sudden change immediately became apparent to us all. There, immediately behind the chair of Claribel, who had been listening attentively to the rector, with her chin resting on her hand, was her double in exactly the same position, with its eyes fixed intently on the rector's face. The rector having started to his feet, assumed a tone and manner which he in vain strove to render firm, and conjured the figure in the name of the Holy Trinity, if it were a thing of evil, to come out of her and trouble her no more; but his exorcism fell as upon the wind, the spectre apparently not hearing his words, and departing at its leisure some two or three minutes afterwards, appearing again once or twice in the same evening during the rector's visit.

The following Sunday prayers were read publicly in the church, with the view of dispelling the evil spirit, as it was called, and mention of the phenomenon was made in the rector's sermon, but all to no purpose. The spectre would appear and disappear whenever it chose, its coming being never heralded by any particular signs, and its vanishing just as uncertain.

If anyone particularly wished it to appear, it was as if the spectre took a malicious delight in disappointing them; if, on the other hand, its presence was exceedingly undesirable, it would be almost certain to appear.

Of the numerous admirers of Claribel it will be necessary for me only to mention two. The first was one John Archer, an ardent and virtuous youth, aged twenty-one, whose honest English face revealed the sincerity of his heart. He held the post of gamekeeper on the estate of Lord Edgedown. He was bold and generous, but of a nature so bashful and timid in matters regarding our sex, that he would have allowed himself to be cut out in a love affair by a man not possessing one half his merit or his good looks.

As my father was on good terms with the father of John Archer, John was always a welcome visitor at our house, and thus began his acquaintance with Claribel. I really think if he had persisted in his suit, as a more courageous lover would have done, that he must at last have won the love of Claribel. I know that Claribel had the highest esteem for him, and had learnt to sympathise with him as one noble nature sympathises with another.