Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Montague Rhodes James (feel good books to read .TXT) 📗

in its true proportion. I

worked in the library from about 9 to 10. The hall and staircase

seemed to be unusually full of what I can only call movement without

sound: by this I mean that there seemed to be continuous going and

coming, and that whenever I ceased writing to listen, or looked out

into the hall, the stillness was absolutely unbroken. Nor, in going

to my room at an earlier hour than usual—about half-past ten—was I

conscious of anything that I could call a noise. It so happened that

I had told John to come to my room for the letter to the bishop which

I wished to have delivered early in the morning at the Palace. He was

to sit up, therefore, and come for it when he heard me retire. This I

had for the moment forgotten, though I had remembered to carry the

letter with me to my room. But when, as I was winding up my watch, I

heard a light tap at the door, and a low voice saying, ‘May I come

in?’ (which I most undoubtedly did hear), I recollected the fact, and

took up the letter from my dressing-table, saying ‘Certainly: come

in.’ No one, however, answered my summons, and it was now that, as I

strongly suspect, I committed an error: for I opened the door and

held the letter out. There was certainly no one at that moment in the

passage, but, in the instant of my standing there, the door at the

end opened and John appeared carrying a candle. I asked him whether

he had come to the door earlier; but am satisfied that he had not. I

do not like the situation; but although my senses were very much on

the alert, and though it was some time before I could sleep, I must

allow that I perceived nothing further of an untoward character.

 

With the return of spring, when his sister came to live with him for some

months, Dr Haynes’s entries become more cheerful, and, indeed, no symptom

of depression is discernible until the early part of September when he

was again left alone. And now, indeed, there is evidence that he was

incommoded again, and that more pressingly. To this matter I will return

in a moment, but I digress to put in a document which, rightly or

wrongly, I believe to have a bearing on the thread of the story.

 

The account-books of Dr Haynes, preserved along with his other papers,

show, from a date but little later than that of his institution as

archdeacon, a quarterly payment of �25 to J. L. Nothing could have been

made of this, had it stood by itself. But I connect with it a very dirty

and ill-written letter, which, like another that I have quoted, was in a

pocket in the cover of a diary. Of date or postmark there is no vestige,

and the decipherment was not easy. It appears to run:

 

Dr Sr.

 

I have bin expctin to her off you theis last wicks, and not Haveing

done so must supose you have not got mine witch was saying how me and

my man had met in with bad times this season all seems to go cross

with us on the farm and which way to look for the rent we have no

knowledge of it this been the sad case with us if you would have the

great [liberality _probably, but the exact spelling defies

reproduction_] to send fourty pounds otherwise steps will have to be

took which I should not wish. Has you was the Means of me losing my

place with Dr Pulteney I think it is only just what I am asking and

you know best what I could say if I was Put to it but I do not wish

anything of that unpleasant Nature being one that always wish to have

everything Pleasant about me.

 

Your obedt Servt,

 

Jane Lee.

 

About the time at which I suppose this letter to have been written there

is, in fact, a payment of �40 to J.L.

 

We return to the diary:

 

Oct. 22—At evening prayers, during the Psalms, I had that same

experience which I recollect from last year. I was resting my hand on

one of the carved figures, as before (I usually avoid that of the cat

now), and—I was going to have said—a change came over it, but that

seems attributing too much importance to what must, after all, be due

to some physical affection in myself: at any rate, the wood seemed to

become chilly and soft as if made of wet linen. I can assign the

moment at which I became sensible of this. The choir were singing the

words (_Set thou an ungodly man to be ruler over him and let Satan

stand at his right hand_.)

 

The whispering in my house was more persistent tonight. I seemed not

to be rid of it in my room. I have not noticed this before. A nervous

man, which I am not, and hope I am not becoming, would have been much

annoyed, if not alarmed, by it. The cat was on the stairs tonight. I

think it sits there always. There is no kitchen cat.

 

Nov.15—Here again I must note a matter I do not understand I am

much troubled in sleep. No definite image presented itself, but I was

pursued by the very vivid impression that wet lips were whispering

into my ear with great rapidity and emphasis for some time together.

After this, I suppose, I fell asleep, but was awakened with a start

by a feeling as if a hand were laid on my shoulder. To my intense

alarm I found myself standing at the top of the lowest flight of the

first staircase. The moon was shining brightly enough through the

large window to let me see that there was a large cat on the second

or third step. I can make no comment. I crept up to bed again, I do

not know how. Yes, mine is a heavy burden. [Then follows a line or

two which has been scratched out. I fancy I read something like

‘acted for the best’.]

 

Not long after this it is evident to me that the archdeacon’s firmness

began to give way under the pressure of these phenomena. I omit as

unnecessarily painful and distressing the ejaculations and prayers which,

in the months of December and January, appear for the first time and

become increasingly frequent. Throughout this time, however, he is

obstinate in clinging to his post. Why he did not plead ill-health and

take refuge at Bath or Brighton I cannot tell; my impression is that it

would have done him no good; that he was a man who, if he had confessed

himself beaten by the annoyances, would have succumbed at once, and that

he was conscious of this. He did seek to palliate them by inviting

visitors to his house. The result he has noted in this fashion:

 

Jan. 7—I have prevailed on my cousin Allen to give me a few days,

and he is to occupy the chamber next to mine.

 

Jan. 8—A still night. Allen slept well, but complained of the

wind. My own experiences were as before: still whispering and

whispering: what is it that he wants to say?

 

Jan. 9—Allen thinks this a very noisy house. He thinks, too, that

my cat is an unusually large and fine specimen, but very wild.

 

Jan. 10—Allen and I in the library until 11. He left me twice to

see what the maids were doing in the hall: returning the second time

he told me he had seen one of them passing through the door at the

end of the passage, and said if his wife were here she would soon get

them into better order. I asked him what coloured dress the maid

wore; he said grey or white. I supposed it would be so.

 

Jan. 11—Allen left me today. I must be firm.

 

These words, I must be firm, occur again and again on subsequent days;

sometimes they are the only entry. In these cases they are in an

unusually large hand, and dug into the paper in a way which must have

broken the pen that wrote them.

 

Apparently the archdeacon’s friends did not remark any change in his

behaviour, and this gives me a high idea of his courage and

determination. The diary tells us nothing more than I have indicated of

the last days of his life. The end of it all must be told in the polished

language of the obituary notice:

 

The morning of the 26th of February was cold and tempestuous. At an

early hour the servants had occasion to go into the front hall of the

residence occupied by the lamented subject of these lines. What was

their horror upon observing the form of their beloved and respected

master lying upon the landing of the principal staircase in an

attitude which inspired the gravest fears. Assistance was procured,

and an universal consternation was experienced upon the discovery

that he had been the object of a brutal and a murderous attack. The

vertebral column was fractured in more than one place. This might

have been the result of a fall: it appeared that the stair-carpet was

loosened at one point. But, in addition to this, there were injuries

inflicted upon the eyes, nose and mouth, as if by the agency of some

savage animal, which, dreadful to relate, rendered those features

unrecognizable. The vital spark was, it is needless to add,

completely extinct, and had been so, upon the testimony of

respectable medical authorities, for several hours. The author or

authors of this mysterious outrage are alike buried in mystery, and

the most active conjecture has hitherto failed to suggest a solution

of the melancholy problem afforded by this appalling occurrence.

 

The writer goes on to reflect upon the probability that the writings of

Mr Shelley, Lord Byron, and M. Voltaire may have been instrumental in

bringing about the disaster, and concludes by hoping, somewhat vaguely,

that this event may ‘operate as an example to the rising generation’; but

this portion of his remarks need not be quoted in full.

 

I had already formed the conclusion that Dr Haynes was responsible for

the death of Dr Pulteney. But the incident connected with the carved

figure of death upon the archdeacon’s stall was a very perplexing

feature. The conjecture that it had been cut out of the wood of the

Hanging Oak was not difficult, but seemed impossible to substantiate.

However, I paid a visit to Barchester, partly with the view of finding

out whether there were any relics of the woodwork to be heard of. I was

introduced by one of the canons to the curator of the local museum, who

was, my friend said, more likely to be able to give me information on the

point than anyone else. I told this gentleman of the description of

certain carved figures and arms formerly on the stalls, and asked whether

any had survived. He was able to show me the arms of Dean West and some

other fragments. These, he said, had been got from an old resident, who

had also once owned a figure—perhaps one of those which I was inquiring

for. There was a very odd thing about that figure, he said. ‘The old man

who had it told me that he picked it up in a woodyard, whence he had

obtained the still extant pieces, and had taken it home for his children.

On the way home he was fiddling about with it and it came in two in his

hands, and a bit of