Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Montague Rhodes James (feel good books to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Montague Rhodes James
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wrong, but I’ve got the idea that there’s something wrong in the
atmosphere of the library. I know this, that just before we found you I
was coming along the gallery with Davis, and I said to him, “Did ever you
know such a musty smell anywhere as there is about here? It can’t be
wholesome.” Well now, if one goes on living a long time with a smell of
that kind (I tell you it was worse than I ever knew it) it must get into
the system and break out some time, don’t you think?’
Garrett shook his head. ‘That’s all very well about the smell—but it
isn’t always there, though I’ve noticed it the last day or two—a sort of
unnaturally strong smell of dust. But no—that’s not what did for me. It
was something I saw. And I want to tell you about it. I went into that
Hebrew class to get a book for a man that was inquiring for it down
below. Now that same book I’d made a mistake about the day before. I’d
been for it, for the same man, and made sure that I saw an old parson in
a cloak taking it out. I told my man it was out: off he went, to call
again next day. I went back to see if I could get it out of the parson:
no parson there, and the book on the shelf. Well, yesterday, as I say, I
went again. This time, if you please—ten o’clock in the morning,
remember, and as much light as ever you get in those classes, and there
was my parson again, back to me, looking at the books on the shelf I
wanted. His hat was on the table, and he had a bald head. I waited a
second or two looking at him rather particularly. I tell you, he had a
very nasty bald head. It looked to me dry, and it looked dusty, and the
streaks of hair across it were much less like hair than cobwebs. Well, I
made a bit of a noise on purpose, coughed and moved my feet. He turned
round and let me see his face—which I hadn’t seen before. I tell you
again, I’m not mistaken. Though, for one reason or another I didn’t take
in the lower part of his face, I did see the upper part; and it was
perfectly dry, and the eyes were very deep-sunk; and over them, from the
eyebrows to the cheek-bone, there were cobwebs—thick. Now that closed
me up, as they say, and I can’t tell you anything more.’
*
What explanations were furnished by Earle of this phenomenon it does not
very much concern us to inquire; at all events they did not convince
Garrett that he had not seen what he had seen.
*
Before William Garrett returned to work at the library, the librarian
insisted upon his taking a week’s rest and change of air. Within a few
days’ time, therefore, he was at the station with his bag, looking for a
desirable smoking compartment in which to travel to Burnstow-on-Sea,
which he had not previously visited. One compartment and one only seemed
to be suitable. But, just as he approached it, he saw, standing in front
of the door, a figure so like one bound up with recent unpleasant
associations that, with a sickening qualm, and hardly knowing what he
did, he tore open the door of the next compartment and pulled himself
into it as quickly as if death were at his heels. The train moved off,
and he must have turned quite faint, for he was next conscious of a
smelling-bottle being put to his nose. His physician was a nice-looking
old lady, who, with her daughter, was the only passenger in the carriage.
But for this incident it is not very likely that he would have made any
overtures to his fellow-travellers. As it was, thanks and inquiries and
general conversation supervened inevitably; and Garrett found himself
provided before the journey’s end not only with a physician, but with a
landlady: for Mrs Simpson had apartments to let at Burnstow, which seemed
in all ways suitable. The place was empty at that season, so that Garrett
was thrown a good deal into the society of the mother and daughter. He
found them very acceptable company. On the third evening of his stay he
was on such terms with them as to be asked to spend the evening in their
private sitting-room.
During their talk it transpired that Garrett’s work lay in a library.
‘Ah, libraries are fine places,’ said Mrs Simpson, putting down her work
with a sigh; ‘but for all that, books have played me a sad turn, or
rather a book has.’
‘Well, books give me my living, Mrs Simpson, and I should be sorry to say
a word against them: I don’t like to hear that they have been bad for
you.’
‘Perhaps Mr Garrett could help us to solve our puzzle, mother,’ said Miss
Simpson.
‘I don’t want to set Mr Garrett off on a hunt that might waste a
lifetime, my dear, nor yet to trouble him with our private affairs.’
‘But if you think it in the least likely that I could be of use, I do beg
you to tell me what the puzzle is, Mrs Simpson. If it is finding out
anything about a book, you see, I am in rather a good position to do it.’
‘Yes, I do see that, but the worst of it is that we don’t know the name
of the book.’
‘Nor what it is about?’
‘No, nor that either.’
‘Except that we don’t think it’s in English, mother—and that is not much
of a clue.’
‘Well, Mr Garrett,’ said Mrs Simpson, who had not yet resumed her work,
and was looking at the fire thoughtfully, ‘I shall tell you the story.
You will please keep it to yourself, if you don’t mind? Thank you. Now it
is just this. I had an old uncle, a Dr Rant. Perhaps you may have heard
of him. Not that he was a distinguished man, but from the odd way he
chose to be buried.’
‘I rather think I have seen the name in some guidebook.’
‘That would be it,’ said Miss Simpson. ‘He left directions—horrid old
man!—that he was to be put, sitting at a table in his ordinary clothes,
in a brick room that he’d had made underground in a field near his house.
Of course the country people say he’s been seen about there in his old
black cloak.’
‘Well, dear, I don’t know much about such things,’ Mrs Simpson went on,
‘but anyhow he is dead, these twenty years and more. He was a clergyman,
though I’m sure I can’t imagine how he got to be one: but he did no duty
for the last part of his life, which I think was a good thing; and he
lived on his own property: a very nice estate not a great way from here.
He had no wife or family; only one niece, who was myself, and one nephew,
and he had no particular liking for either of us—nor for anyone else, as
far as that goes. If anything, he liked my cousin better than he did
me—for John was much more like him in his temper, and, I’m afraid I must
say, his very mean sharp ways. It might have been different if I had not
married; but I did, and that he very much resented. Very well: here he
was with this estate and a good deal of money, as it turned out, of which
he had the absolute disposal, and it was understood that we—my cousin
and I—would share it equally at his death. In a certain winter, over
twenty years back, as I said, he was taken ill, and I was sent for to
nurse him. My husband was alive then, but the old man would not hear of
his coming. As I drove up to the house I saw my cousin John driving
away from it in an open fly and looking, I noticed, in very good spirits.
I went up and did what I could for my uncle, but I was very soon sure
that this would be his last illness; and he was convinced of it too.
During the day before he died he got me to sit by him all the time, and I
could see there was something, and probably something unpleasant, that he
was saving up to tell me, and putting it off as long as he felt he could
afford the strength—I’m afraid purposely in order to keep me on the
stretch. But, at last, out it came. “Mary,” he said,—“Mary, I’ve made my
will in John’s favour: he has everything, Mary.” Well, of course that
came as a bitter shock to me, for we—my husband and I—were not rich
people, and if he could have managed to live a little easier than he was
obliged to do, I felt it might be the prolonging of his life. But I said
little or nothing to my uncle, except that he had a right to do what he
pleased: partly because I couldn’t think of anything to say, and partly
because I was sure there was more to come: and so there was. “But, Mary,”
he said, “I’m not very fond of John, and I’ve made another will in your
favour. You can have everything. Only you’ve got to find the will, you
see: and I don’t mean to tell you where it is.” Then he chuckled to
himself, and I waited, for again I was sure he hadn’t finished. “That’s a
good girl,” he said after a time,—“you wait, and I’ll tell you as much
as I told John. But just let me remind you, you can’t go into court with
what I’m saying to you, for you won’t be able to produce any collateral
evidence beyond your own word, and John’s a man that can do a little hard
swearing if necessary. Very well then, that’s understood. Now, I had the
fancy that I wouldn’t write this will quite in the common way, so I wrote
it in a book, Mary, a printed book. And there’s several thousand books in
this house. But there! you needn’t trouble yourself with them, for it
isn’t one of them. It’s in safe keeping elsewhere: in a place where John
can go and find it any day, if he only knew, and you can’t. A good will
it is: properly signed and witnessed, but I don’t think you’ll find the
witnesses in a hurry.”
‘Still I said nothing: if I had moved at all I must have taken hold of
the old wretch and shaken him. He lay there laughing to himself, and at
last he said:
‘“Well, well, you’ve taken it very quietly, and as I want to start you
both on equal terms, and John has a bit of a purchase in being able to go
where the book is, I’ll tell you just two other things which I didn’t
tell him. The will’s in English, but you won’t know that if ever you see
it. That’s one thing, and another is that when I’m gone you’ll find an
envelope in my desk directed to you, and inside it something that would
help you to find it, if only you have the wits to use it.”
‘In a few hours from that he was gone, and though I made an appeal to
John Eldred about it—’
‘John Eldred? I beg your pardon, Mrs Simpson—I think I’ve
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