Part 8

"A ghost? You speak lightly enough, and I suppose your idea of a ghost is some conventional bogey such as children are scared with. We laugh at such things--heaven knows why! An evil, sin-breathing spirit, coming from hell to take vengeance, for some dead and buried wrong, upon living men and women--what is there laughable in that?"

"Really, Calbot," I said, with a smile--a rather uneasy smile, be it admitted--"I never laughed at a ghost, for the simple reason that I never saw one to laugh at."

"You never saw one, and you mean to hint, I suppose, that there are none to see?"

"Well," returned I, still maintaining a precarious grimace, "I'm not a spiritualist, you know----"

"Nor I," interrupted Calbot, in a lower and quieter tone than he had yet used. He took a chair, and, sitting down close in front of me, bent forward and whispered in my ear: "But I saw the soul of a dead man yesterday; and this afternoon I saw it again, and chased it from the Burleighs' house in Mayfair, along the Strand, and through the heart of London, to its grave in St. G----'s churchyard. I copied the inscription on the stone: it is a very old one, as you will see by the date."

A far bolder man than I have ever claimed to be might have felt his heart stand still at this speech; and its effect on me was greatly heightened by Calbot's tone and manner, and by the way he fastened his eyes upon me. Nor were the circumstances in other respects reassuring--alone at night, with a man three or four times my physical equal, who was wholly emancipated from rational control. I sat quite still for a few moments--very long moments they seemed to me--staring helplessly at Calbot, who took a small notebook out of his pocket, tore out a leaf with something scrawled on it, and handed it to me. I read it mechanically--"Archibald Armstrong. Died February 6th, 1698." Meanwhile Calbot helped himself to another glass of wine; but I was too much unnerved to restrain him, and, indeed, too much bewildered.

"Archibald Armstrong," muttered I, repeating the name aloud; "died February 6th--yes; but it was this present year 1875--not 1698. Why, I went to the auction-sale of his effects this very afternoon!"

"Keep the paper," said Calbot, not noticing my observation, "it may possibly lead to something. And now I wish you to listen to my statement. I am neither crazy, Drayton, nor intoxicated. But I am not the same man you have known heretofore; my life has been seared--blasted. Perhaps you think my language extravagant; but after what I have experienced there can be no such thing as extravagance for me. It is an awful thing," he added, with a long involuntary sigh, "to have been face to face with an evil spirit!"

"In Heaven's name, Calbot," cried I, starting up from my chair, and trembling all over, I believe, from nervous excitement, "don't go on talking and looking like that. If you can tell me a straightforward, consistent story, I'll listen to it; but these hints and interjections of yours will drive me mad!"

"I'm going to tell you, Drayton, though it will be the next worst thing to meeting that----Thing----itself, to tell about it. But the matter is too grim earnest to allow of trifling. You have a great deal of knowledge on queer and out-of-the-way subjects, Drayton, and I thought it not impossible that you might make some suggestions, for there must be some reason for this hideous visitation--some cause for it; and though all is over for me now, there would be a kind of satisfaction in knowing what that reason was. Besides, I must speak to someone, and you are a dear friend, and an old one."

I was a good deal relieved to hear Calbot speak thus affectionately of our relations with each other; and indeed he appeared no way inclined to violence. Accordingly, having offered him a Cabana (which he refused), I put the box and the decanter back in the cupboard, and locked the door. Then, relighting my own cigar, and putting a lump or two of coal on the fire, I resumed my chair, and bade my friend begin his story.

VI.

"There was an intermarriage between the Burleighs and the Calbots four or five generations ago," said he; "I found the record of it in our family papers, shortly before Miss Burleigh and I were engaged; but it appears not to have turned out well. I don't know whether the husband and wife quarrelled, or whether their troubles came from some outside interference; but they had not been long married before a separation took place--not a regular divorce, but the wife went quietly back to her fathers house, and my ancestor is supposed to have gone abroad. But this was not the end of it, Drayton; for, some years later, the husband returned, and he and his wife lived together again."

"Was there any further estrangement between them, afterwards?"

"It is an ugly story," said Calbot, gloomily, getting up from his chair, and taking his old place before the fire. "No; they lived together--as long as they did live! But it was about the era of the witchcraft mania--or delusion, if you choose to call it so--and it is strongly hinted in some of the documents in my possession that the Calbots were--not witches--but victims of witchcraft. They accused no one, but they seemed to have been shunned by everybody like persons under the shadow of a curse. Well--it wasn't a great while before Mrs. Calbot died, and her husband went mad soon afterwards. There were two children. One of them, the son, was born before the first separation. The other, a daughter, came into the world after the reunion, and she was an idiot!"

"An ugly story, sure enough," said I, shrugging my shoulders with a chilly sensation; "but what has it to do with your business?"

"Perhaps nothing; but there is one thing which would go for nothing in the way of legal evidence, but which has impressed me, nevertheless. The date of the second coming-together of my ancestor and his wife was 1698."

"Well?"

"If you look at that paper I gave you you'll see the date of Armstrong's death is also 1698."

"Still I don't see the point."

"It's simply this: the--Thing I saw was the condemned soul of that Archibald Armstrong. Who he may have been I don't know; but I can't help believing that my ancestor knew him when he was still in the flesh. They had a feud, perhaps--maybe about this very marriage--of course you understand I'm only supposing a case. Well, Calbot gets the better of his rival, and is married. Then Armstrong exerts his malignant ingenuity to set them at odds with each other. He may have played on the superstitious fancies which they probably shared with others of that age, and at last we may suppose he accomplished their separation."

"An ingenious idea," I admitted, "but what about your date?"

"Why, on hearing of his death, they would naturally suppose all danger over, and that they might live together unmolested. And from this point you may differ with me or not, as you choose. I believe that it was only after Armstrong was dead that his power for evil became commensurate with his will. I believe, Drayton," said Calbot, drawing himself up to his full height, and emphasising his words with the slow gesture of his right arm, "that the soul of that dead man haunted that wretched couple from the day of his death until the whole tragedy was consummated--until the woman died and the man went mad. And I believe that his devilish malignity has lived on to this day, and wreaked itself, a second time, on Miss Burleigh and myself."

There was a short pause, during which my poor friend stood tapping one foot on the hearth-rug, his eyes bent downwards in sombre abstraction.

"Look here, my dear John," I said at length, speaking with an effort, for there was a sensation of heavy oppression on my chest; "listen to me, old fellow. You've had time to cool down and bethink yourself: so far as I can judge you appear, as you say, neither crazy nor intoxicated. Now I wish you, remembering that we are sensible, enlightened men, living in London in this year 1875, to tell me honestly whether I am to understand you as deliberately asserting a belief in visitations from the other world. Because, really, you know, that is what anyone would infer from the way you have been talking this evening."

"I see there would be little use, Drayton, in my answering your question directly; but I will give you a deliberate and honest account of my personal experiences during these last two days: there will be no danger of your mistaking my meaning then. You won't mind my walking up and down the room while I'm speaking, will you? The subject is a painful one, and motion seems to make it easier, somehow."

I did mind it very much, it made me as nervous as a water-beetle; but, of course, I forbore to say so, and Calbot went on:

"I said I found out all this ancestral trouble some time before I was engaged; and, as you may imagine, I kept silence about it to Miss Burleigh. I think now it was a mistake to do so; but my ideas on many subjects have undergone modification of late. I believe I had forgotten all about the discovery by the time I had made up my mind to risk an avowal: at any rate, I had no misgivings about it; and when I came out from my interview with her--the happiest man in England!--ah Drayton, it seemed to me then that there could be no more pains nor shadows in life for me thence-forward for ever!"

I devoutly wished, not for the first time that evening, that Calbot would not be so painfully in earnest. In his normal state it was difficult to get a serious word out of him; he was brimming over with quaint humour and fun; but, as he himself had remarked, he was another man to-day. After walking backwards and forwards once or twice in silence, he continued:

"You know how happy I was those first few days. I daresay you wished me and my happiness in Jericho, when I insisted on deluging you with an account of it. Think! Drayton, that was hardly a week ago. Well, as soon as I had got a little bit used to the feeling of being engaged, I began to think what I should give her--Edna, you know--for a betrothal gift. A ring, of course, is the usual thing; but I couldn't be satisfied with a ring: I wanted my gift to be something rare--unique; in short, something different from what any other fellow could give his mistress; for I loved her more than any woman was ever loved before. After a good deal of fruitless bother, I suddenly bethought myself of a jewel-box which had belonged to my mother--God bless her!--and which she had bequeathed to me, intending, very likely, that I should use it for the very purpose I was now thinking of. I got out the box, and overhauled it. There was a lot of curious old trinkets in it; but the thing which at once took my eye was a delicately wrought gold necklace, that looked as though it had been made expressly for Edna's throat. There was a locket attached to it, which I at first meant to take off; but on examining it closely, I found it was quite worthy of the chain--was an exquisite work of art, indeed. It was made of a dark yellow or brownish sort of stone, semi-transparent, and was engraven with a very finely-wrought bas-relief."

"Calbot!" exclaimed I, starting upright in my chair, "what sort of a stone did you say that locket was made of?"

"What is the matter?" returned he, stopping short in his walk and facing me with a glance partly apprehensive, partly expectant. "I never saw exactly such a stone before--but why?"

"Oh, nothing," said I, after a moment's excited thought; "it certainly is very strange! But, never mind, go on," I added, throwing a glance at the old manuscript which lay open on the table; "go on. I'll tell you afterwards; I must turn it over in my mind a bit."

"The reason I described it so minutely," remarked Calbot, "was that I got a notion into my head that it had something to do with what happened afterwards, and the reason of that notion is, that almost from the very moment that Edna took the necklace--I clasped it round her neck myself--the strange awful influence--visitation--call it what you like--began to be apparent.

"Oh Drayton, you can never know how lovely, how divine she looked that evening. She had on what they call, I believe, a demi-toilette; open at the throat, you know, and half the arm showing. No woman could have looked more beautiful than she, before I put on the chain and locket; yet when they were on, she looked as handsome again. It was really wonderful--the effect they had. Her eyes deepened, and an indescribable change or modulation--imperceptible, very likely, to anyone beside myself, her lover--came over her face. I think it was a shade of sadness--of mystery--no, I can only repeat, that it was indescribable; but it gave her beauty just the touch that made it, humanly speaking, perfect. I daresay this is all very tiresome to you, Drayton, but I can't help it!"

"Oh, go on, my dear fellow," said I warmly; for, indeed, I was moved as well as excited. "Won't you sit down? Here, take my chair!"

But he would not.

"As I fastened the clasp, I said: 'You are fettered for ever now, Edna!' and she said, with her eyes sparkling: 'Yes, I am the thrall of the locket; the giver may lead me in triumph where he will!' Just as the words passed her lips, Drayton, I felt a sensation of coldness and depression; I gave an involuntary shudder, and looking quickly in Edna's eyes, I saw there the very reflection of my own feeling! We were alone, and yet there seemed to be a third person present--cold, hateful, malevolent. He seemed to be between us--to be pressing us irresistibly apart; and I felt powerless to contend against the insidious influence; and so was she. For an instant or two we gazed fearfully and strangely at each other; then she said faintly: 'Come to me--take me!' and half held out her arms, her face and lips all pale. Drayton, I cannot tell you what a desperate struggle I had with myself then! My whole soul leapt out towards her with a passion such as I had never known before; and yet my body seemed paralysed. I had felt something similar to it in dreams before then; but the dream pain was nothing to the real pain. A cold dead hand was on my heart, dragging it backward, deadening it; and another at my throat, stifling me. But I fought against it--it seemed to me I sweated drops of blood--but I overcame. I put my arm round her waist--I kissed her; and yet, though I seemed to hold her--though our lips seemed to meet--still that Thing was between us--we did not really touch each other! With all our love, we were like lifeless clay to one another's caress. It was a mockery--our souls could meet no more." Here Calbot covered his eyes with his hand for a short time. "It was the last time I ever kissed her," said he.

I said nothing; my sympathy with my hapless friend was keen. Yet I must confess to a secret sensation of relief that there was to be no more kissing. It was natural, under the circumstances, that Calbot--poor fellow!--should speak recklessly; but I am a bachelor, a confirmed bachelor, and such descriptions distress me; they make me restless, wakeful, and unhappy. Yes, I was glad we had had the last of them.

"It all passed very quickly, and a third person would perhaps have seen no change in us; probably the change was more inward than outward, after all. It was peculiar that we, both of us, by a tacit understanding, forbore to speak to each other of this dismal mystery that had so suddenly grown up between us. It was too real, and at the same time too hopeless; but to have acknowledged it would have been to pronounce it hopeless indeed. We would not do that yet. We sat apart, quietly and conventionally making observations on ordinary topics, as though we had been newly introduced. And yet my betrothal gift was round her neck, moving as she breathed; and we loved each other, and our hearts were breaking. Oh, it is cruel!"

In exclaiming thus, my friend (being at the farther end of the room at the time) struck his foot sharp against the leg of a small antique table which stood against the wall. Like many other valuable things, the table was fragile, and the leg broke. The table tipped over, and a vase (the ancestral vase, containing the elixir of life), fell off to the floor.

Calbot--I think it was much to his credit--found room amidst his proper anguish to be sincerely distressed at this accident. On picking up the vase, however, he immediately exclaimed that it was unbroken. This was fortunate: the table could be mended, but the vase, not to speak of its contents, would have been irreplaceable. Calbot put it carefully on the study table, beside the MS.; set the invalid table in a corner; and then, to my great satisfaction, drew up a chair to the fire, and continued his sad story in a civilised posture.

VII.

"I did not stay long after this; and ours was a strange parting that evening, if our hearts could have been seen. We felt it a relief to separate, and yet the very relief was a finer kind of pain. We knew not what had befallen us; but, perhaps, we both had a hope, then, that another day would somehow set things right.

"I only took her hand in saying good-bye; but again it seemed as if her soft fingers were not actually in contact with mine--as if some rival hand were interposed. And I noticed (as I had done once or twice before during our latter conversation) that, even while the farewell words were being spoken, she turned her head abruptly with a startled, listening expression, as though another voice had spoken close at her ear. I could hear nothing, nor understand the dimly terrified look in her eyes--a look appealing and yet shrinking. But afterwards I understood it all. When I reached the street, I turned back and caught a glimpse of Edna at the window. Beside her I fancied I distinguished the half-defined outlines of a strange figure--that of a man who appeared to be gesticulating in an extravagant manner. But before I could decide whether it were a shadow or a reality, Edna had turned away, and the apparition vanished with her."

"Her father, of course," I threw in, with a glance over my shoulder; "or perhaps it was the footman." Calbot made no reply.

"I got up yesterday morning," said he, "convinced that the whole thing was a delusion. I took a brisk walk round Hyde Park, ate a good breakfast, and by eleven o'clock was on my way to her house, sure that I should find her as cheerfully disposed to laugh at our dolorous behaviour the night before as I myself was. I went down Piccadilly in the best of spirits; but on turning the corner of Park Lane, I very plainly saw three persons coming down towards me."

Here Calbot paused so long that I could hardly refrain from springing out of my chair. I had never heard him argue a case before a jury; but had I been the presiding judge himself, I was convinced that Calbot could have moulded my opinions to whatsoever issue he had pleased. But, on the other hand, I doubt whether he was aware of his own best powers. The effect he was now producing on me was certainly not the result of any premeditated artifice.

"I saw Edna," he finally went on, speaking in a husky labouring tone, and gazing intently over my shoulder, as if he saw her _there_. "She was walking in the centre, with a weary lifeless step, her head bent downwards: on her right was her father, as jolly and portly as ever; and on her left, Drayton, was the same strange figure of which I fancied I had caught a glimpse the night before. It was no shadow now, however, but looked as real and palpable as General Burleigh himself. It appeared to be diligently addressing itself to Edna, occasionally even stooping to speak in her ear; and once I saw it put its arm round her waist, and apparently press its bearded cheek to her own."

"Why, in Heaven's name, Calbot, didn't you----" But there was something in my friend's eyes, as he turned them on me, which made me break off just there.

"When I first turned the corner the three were sixty or seventy yards distant. It struck me at once that Edna seemed to have no direct consciousness of the stranger's presence. That is, she did not act as if he were visible to her; though, at the same time, I could hardly doubt that the _idea_ of him was present to her mind; and from her manner of involuntary shrinking and starting when the Thing became particularly demonstrative in its manner, I fancied that the words which it appeared to address to her insinuated themselves into her brain under the form of dismal and hateful thoughts. Perhaps, Drayton, the base or wicked notions that sometimes creep into our minds unawares, asserting themselves our own, are whispered to us by some evil spirit, invisible to our sight, but capable of impressing the immaterial part of us all the more effectively.

"As they drew near, I could no longer doubt that the Thing was viewless, not only to Edna, but to everyone else besides myself alone. Had it been otherwise, the figure's remarkable costume, no less than its many eccentricities, would have drawn a great crowd in a few moments. It was a tall fantastic apparition, clad in a black velvet cloak and doublet, silk hose, and high-heeled shoes. On its head was a broad-brimmed hat, with heavy plumes; there were lace ruffles at its wrists and round its throat. A long rapier dangled by its side; its beard was gray and peaked, but a copious powdered wig flowed out beneath the hat and rested on the shoulders.

"Its gait, as it stalked along the pavement, was mincing and affected, and under other circumstances I might have laughed at it. Its manner and gestures were absurdly exaggerated and fantastic. It was continually bowing and scraping to Edna, and seemingly making hot love to her; but as often as she winced or shrank from it, it appeared hugely delighted, throwing up its arms, wagging its head, and contorting its body, as if carried away by an immoderate fit of laughter.

"The sun was shining broadly, but none of its rays seemed to fall on the sable garments of this singular personage. In fact, though I saw him as plainly as I now see you, Drayton, I was, nevertheless, well aware that here was something more or less than flesh and blood. It was a being of another state than this mortal one of ours. I say I saw him; and yet I do not believe that it was with my natural eyesight. A deeper sense of vision had been temporarily opened within me, and this spectre came within its scope.

"For a spectre it was. General Burleigh, striding bluffly along by the other side of his daughter, swinging his cane, twisting his moustaches, and ever and anon smiling and bowing to a passing friend, was ludicrously unconscious of there being anything supernatural in his vicinity. Moreover, I saw at least twenty persons pass the apparition shoulder to shoulder, evidently without seeing it; though they would often shiver, and wrap their top-coats or shawls more closely round them, as if a sudden blast of icy air had penetrated them. All this time the three were approaching slowly, and were now but little more than twenty paces distant. I had not moved a step since first coming in view of them, and had kept my eyes fixed point-blank upon the apparition.