Mr Arcularis by Conrad Aiken

Mr. Arcularis stood at the window of his room in the hospital and looked down at the street. There had been a light shower, which had patterned the sidewalks with large drops, but now again the sun was out, blue sky was showing here and there between the swift white clouds, a cold wind was blowing the poplar trees. An itinerant band had stopped before the building and was playing, with violin, harp, and flute, the finale of "Cavalleria Rusticana." Leaning against the window-sill— for he felt extraordinarily weak after his operation— Mr. Arcularis suddenly, listening to the wretched music, felt like crying. He rested the palm of one hand against a cold window pane and stared down at the old man who was blowing the flute, and blinked his eyes. It seemed absurd that he should be so weak, so emotional, so like a child-and especially now that everything was over at last. In spite of all their predictions, in spite, too, of his own dreadful certainty that he was going to die, here he was, as fit as a fiddle-but what a fiddle it was, so out of tune!-with a long life before him. And to begin with, a voyage to England ordered by the doctor. What could be more delightful? Why should he feel sad about it and want to cry like a baby? In a few minutes Harry would arrive with his car to take him to the wharf; in an hour he would be on the sea, in two hours he would see the sunset
behind him, where Boston had been, and his new life would be opening before him. It was many years since he had been abroad. June, the best of the year to come-England, France, the Rhine-how ridiculous that he should already be homesick!


There was a light footstep outside the door, a knock, the door opened, and Harry came in.


"Well, old man, I've come to get you. The old bus actually got here. Are you ready? Here, let me take your arm. You're tottering like an octogenarian!"


Mr. Arcularis submitted gratefully, laughing, and they made the journey slowly along the bleak corridor and down the stairs to the entrance hall. Miss Hoyle, his nurse, was there, and the Matron, and the charming
little assistant with freckles who had helped to prepare him for the operation. Miss Hoyle put out her hand.


"Good-by, Mr. Arcularis," she said, "and bon voyage."


"Good-by, Miss Hoyle, and thank you for everything. You were very kind to me. And I fear I was a nuisance."


The girl with the freckles, too, gave him her hand, smiling. She was very pretty, and it would have been easy to fall in love with her. She reminded him of someone. Who was it? He tried in vain to remember while he said good-by to her and turned to the Matron.





"And not too many latitudes with the young ladies, Mr. Arcularis!" she was saying.


Mr. Arcularis was pleased, flattered, by all this attention to a middle-aged invalid, and felt a joke taking shape in his mind, and no sooner in his mind than on his tongue.


"Oh, no latitudes," he said, laughing. "I'll leave the latitudes to the ship!"


"Oh, come now," said the Matron, "we don't seem to have hurt him much, do we?"


"I think we'll have to operate on him again and really cure him," said Miss Hoyle.


He was going down the front steps, between the potted palmettoes, and they all laughed and waved. The wind was cold, very cold for June' and he was glad he had put on his coat. He shivered.


"Damned cold for June!" he said. "Why should it be so cold?"


"East wind," Harry said, arranging the rug over his knees. "Sorry it's an open car, but I believe in fresh air and all that sort of thing. I'll drive slowly. We've got plenty of time."


They coasted gently down the long hill towards Beacon Street, but the road was badly surfaced, and despite Harry's care Mr. Arcularis felt his pain again. He found that he could alleviate it a little by leaning to the
right, against the arm-rest, and not breathing too deeply. But how glorious to be out again! How strange and vivid the world looked! The trees had innumerable green fresh leaves-they were all blowing and shifting and turning and flashing in the wind; drops of rainwater fell downward sparkling; the robins were singing their absurd, delicious little four-noted songs; even the street cars looked unusually bright and beauti- ful, just as they used to look when he was a child and had wanted above all things to be a motorman. He found himself smiling foolishly at everything, foolishly and weakly, and wanted to say something about it to Harry. It was no use, though-he had no strength, and the mere finding of words would be almost more than he could manage. And even if he should succeed in saying it, he would then most likely burst into tears. He shook his head slowly from side to side.


"Ain't it grand?" he said.


"I'll bet it looks good," said Harry.


"Words fail me."


"You wait till you get out to sea. You'll have a swell time."


"Oh, swell! ... I hope not. I hope it'll be calm."


"Tut tut."


When they passed the Harvard Club Mr. Arcularis made a slow and somewhat painful effort to turn in his seat and look at it. It might be the last chance to see it for a long time. Why this sentimental longing to stare at it, though? There it was, with the great flag blowing in the wind the Harvard seal now concealed by the swift folds and now revealed and there were the windows in the library, where he had spent so many delightful hours reading-Plato, and Kipling, and the Lord knows what-and the balconies from which for so many years he had watched the finish of the Marathon. Old Talbot might be in there now, sleeping with a book on his knee, hoping forlornly to be interrupted by anyone, for anything.


"Good-by to the old club," he said.


"The bar will miss you," said Harry, smiling with friendly irony and looking straight ahead.


"But let there be no moaning," said Mr. Arcularis. "What's that a quotation from?"


" 'The Odyssey/ " .


In spite of the cold, he was glad of the wind on his face, for it helped to dissipate the feeling of vagueness and dizziness that came over him in a sickening wave from time to time. All of a sudden everything would begin to swim and dissolve, the houses would lean their heads together he had to close his eyes, and there would be a curious and dreadtul humming noise, which at regular intervals rose to a crescendo arid then drawlingly subsided again. It was disconcerting. Perhaps he still had a trace of fever. When he got on the ship he would have a glass of whisky. From one of these spells he opened his eyes and found that they were on the ferry, crossing to East Boston. It must have the ferry s engines that he had heard. From another spell he woke to find himselt on the wharf, the car at a standstill beside a pile of yellow packing-cases.
"We're here because we're here because we're here," said Harry.
"Because we're here," added Mr. Arcularis.


He dozed in the car while Harry-and what a good friend Harry was!-attended to all the details. He went and came with tickets and passports and baggage checks and porters. And at last he unwrapped Mr. Arcularis from the rugs and led him up the steep gangplank to the deck, and thence by devious windings to a small cold stateroom with a solitary porthole like the eye of a cyclops.


"Here you are," he said, "and now I've got to go. Did you hear the


whistle?"


"No."


"Well, you're half asleep. It's sounded the ail-ashore. Good-by old fellow, and take care of yourself. Bring me back a^spray of edelweiss. And send me a picture post card from the Absolute."


"Will you have it finite or infinite?"


"Oh, infinite. But with your signature on it. Now you'd better turn in for a while and have a nap. Cheerio!"


Mr. Arcularis took his hand and pressed it hard, and once more felt like crying. Absurd! Had he become a child again?


"Good-by," he said.


He sat down in the little wicker chair, with his overcoat still on, closed his eyes, and listened to the humming of the air in the ventilator. Hurried footsteps ran up and down the corridor. The chair was too comfortable
and his pain began to bother him again, so he moved, with his coat still on to the narrow berth and fell asleep. When he woke up, it was dark and the porthole had been partly opened. He groped for the switch and
turned on the light. Then he rang for the steward.


"It's cold in here," he said. "Would you mind closing the port?"


The girl who sat opposite him at dinner was charming. Who was it she reminded him of? Why, of course, the girl at the hospital, the girl with the freckles. Her hair was beautiful, not quite red, not quite gold nor had it been bobbed; arranged with a sort of graceful untidiness, it made him think of a Melozzo da Forli angel. Her face was freckled, she had a mouth which was both humorous and voluptuous. And she seemed to be alone.


He frowned at the bill of fare and ordered the thick soup.


"No hors d'oeuvres?" asked the steward.


"I think not," said Mr. Arcularis. "They might kill me."


The steward permitted himself to be amused and deposited the menu card on the table against the water-bottle. His eyebrows were lifted
As he moved away, the girl followed him with her eyes and smiled.


"I'm afraid you shocked him," she said.


"Impossible," said Mr. Arcularis. "These stewards, they're dead souls How could they be stewards otherwise? And they think they've seen and known everything. They suffer terribly from the deja vu. Personally I dont blame them."


"It must be a dreadful sort of life."


"It's because they're dead that they accept it."


"Do you think so?"


"I'm sure of it. I'm enough of a dead soul myself to know the signs!"


"Well, I don't know what you mean by that!"


"But nothing mysterious! I'm just out of hospital, after an operation I was given up for dead. For six months I had given myself up for dead. If you've ever been seriously ill you know the feeling. You have a post-
humous feeling-a mild, cynical tolerance for everything and everyone. What is there you haven't seen or done or understood? Nothing."


Mr. Arcularis waved his hands and smiled.


"I wish I could understand you," said the girl, "but I've never been ill
in my life."


"Never?"


"Never."


"Good God!"


The torrent of the unexpressed and inexpressible paralyzed him and rendered him speechless. He stared at the girl, wondering who she was and then, realizing that he had perhaps stared too fixedly averted his
gaze, gave a little laugh, rolled a pill of bread between his fingers. After a second or two he allowed himself to look at her again and found her


"Never pay any attention to invalids," he said, "or they'll drag you to the hospital."


She examined him critically, with her head tilted a little to one side, but with friendliness.


"You don't look like an invalid," she said.


Mr. Arcularis thought her charming. His pain ceased to bother him, the disagreeable humming disappeared, or rather, it was dissociated from himself and became merely, as it should be, the sound of the ship's engines, and he began to think the voyage was going to be really delightful.
The parson on his right passed him the salt.


"I fear you will need this in your soup," he said. "Thank you. Is it as bad as that?"


The steward, overhearing, was immediately apologetic and solicitous. He explained that on the first day everything was at sixes and sevens. The girl looked up at him and asked him a question. "Do you think well have a good voyage?" she said. He was passing the hot rolls to the parson, removing the napkins from
them with a deprecatory finger.


"Well, madam, I don't like to be a Jeremiah, but- "


"Oh, come," said the parson, "I hope we have no Jeremiahs. "What do you mean?" said the girl.


Mr. Arcularis ate his soup with gusto-it was nice and hot. "Well, maybe I shouldn't say it, but there's a corpse on board, going to Ireland; and I never yet knew a voyage with a corpse on board that we didn't have bad weather."


"Why, steward, you're just superstitious! What nonsense. "That's a very ancient superstition," said Mr. Arcularis. "I've heard it many times. Maybe it's true. Maybe we'll be wrecked. And what does it matter, after all?" He was very bland.


"Then let's be wrecked," said the parson coldly.


Nevertheless, Mr. Arcularis felt a shudder go through him on hearing the steward's remark. A corpse in the hold-a coffin? Perhaps it was true. Perhaps some disaster would befall them. There might be fogs There
might be icebergs. He thought of all the wrecks of which he had read. There was the Titanic, which he had read about in the warm newspaper room at the Harvard Club-it had seemed dreadfully real, even there.
That band, playing "Nearer My God to Thee" on the after-deck while the ship sank! It was one of the darkest of his memories. And the Empress of Ireland-all those poor people trapped in the smoking-room, with only one door between them and life, and that door locked for the night by the deck-steward, and the deck-steward nowhere to be found! He shivered, feeling a draft, and turned to the parson.


"How do these strange delusions arise?" he said.


The parson looked at him searchingly, appraisingly-from chin to forehead, from forehead to chin-and Mr. Arcularis, feeling uncomfortable, straightened his tie.


"From nothing but fear/' said the parson. "Nothing on earth but fear."


"How strange!" said the girl.


Mr. Arcularis again looked at her-she had lowered her face-and again tried to think of whom she reminded him. It wasn't only the freckle-faced girl at the hospital-both of them had reminded him of someone else.
Someone far back in his life: remote, beautiful, lovely. But he couldn't think. The meal came to an end, they all rose, the ship's orchestra played a feeble fox-trot, and Mr. Arcularis, once more alone, went to the bar to
have his whisky. The room was stuffy, and the ship's engines were both audible and palpable. The humming and throbbing oppressed him, the rhythm seemed to be the rhythm of his own pain, and after a short time he found his way, with slow steps, holding on to the walls in his moments of weakness and dizziness, to his forlorn and white little room. The port had been-thank God!-closed for the night: it was cold enough anyway.
The white and blue ribbons fluttered from the ventilator, the bottle and glasses clicked and clucked as the ship swayed gently to the long, slow motion of the sea. It was all very popular-it was all like something he
had experienced somewhere before. What was it? Where was it? . He untied his tie, looking at his face in the glass, and wondered, and from time to time put his hand to his side to hold in the pain. It wasn't at Portsmouth, in his childhood, nor at Salem, nor in the rose-garden at his Aunt Julia's, nor in the schoolroom at Cambridge. It was something very queer, very intimate, very precious. The jackstones, the Sunday-
School cards which he had loved when he was a child ... He fell asleep.


The sense of time was already hopelessly confused. One hour was like another, the sea looked always the same, morning was indistinguishable from afternoon-and was it Tuesday or Wednesday? Mr. Arcularis
was sitting in the smoking-room, in his favorite corner, watching the parson teach Miss Dean to play chess. On the deck outside he could see the people passing and repassing in their restless round of the ship. The
red jacket went by, then the black hat with the white feather, then the purple scarf, the brown tweed coat, the Bulgarian mustache, the monocle, the Scotch cap with fluttering ribbons, and in no time at all the red
jacket again, dipping past the windows with its own peculiar rhythm, followed once more by the black hat and the purple scarf. How odd to reflect on the fixed little orbits of these things-as definite and profound,
perhaps, as the orbits of the stars, and as important to God or the Absolute. There was a kind of tyranny in this fixedness, too-to think of it too much made one uncomfortable. He closed his eyes for a moment, to
avoid seeing for the fortieth time the Bulgarian mustache and the pursuing monocle. The parson was explaining the movements of knights. Two forward and one to the side: Miss Dean repeated the words several


times with reflective emphasis. Here, too, was the terrifying fixed curve of the infinite, the creeping curve of logic which at last must become the final signpost at the edge of nothing. After that-the deluge. The great
white light of annihilation. The bright flash of death ... Was it merely the sea which made these abstractions so insistent, so intrusive? The mere notion of orbit had somehow become extraordinarily naked; and to rid
himself of the discomfort and also to forget a little the pain which bothered his side whenever he sat down, he walked slowly and carefully into the writing-room, and examined a pile of superannuated magazines and
catalogues of travel. The bright colors amused him, the photographs or remote islands and mountains, savages in sampans or sarongs or both-it was all very far off and delightful, like something in a dream or a fever. But he found that he was too tired to read and was incapable of concentration. Dreams! Yes, that reminded him. That rather alarming business—sleep-walking!


Later in the evening-at what hour he didn't know-he was telling Miss Dean about it, as he had intended to do. They were sitting in deck-chairs on the sheltered side. The sea was black, and there was a coldwind. He wished they had chosen to sit in the lounge.


Miss Dean was extremely pretty-no, beautiful. She looked at him, too in a very strange and lovely way, with something of inquiry, some- thing of sympathy, something of affection. It seemed as if, between the question and the answer, they had sat thus for a very long time, exchanging an unspoken secret, simply looking at each other quietly and kindly. Had an hour or two passed? And was it at all necessary to speak? "No," she said, "I never have."


She breathed into the low words a note of interrogation and gave him a slow smile.


"That's the funny part of it. I never had either until last night. Never in my life. I hardly ever even dream. And it really rather frightens me. "Tell me about it, Mr. Arcularis."


"I dreamed at first that I was walking, alone, in a wide plain covered with snow. It was growing dark, I was very cold, my feet were frozen and numb, and I was lost. I came then to a signpost-at first it seemed to me there was nothing on it. Nothing but ice. Just before it grew finally dark, however, I made out on it the one word 'Polaris .


"The Polar Star."


"Yes-and you see, I didn't myself know that. I looked it up only this morning. I suppose I must have seen it somewhere? And of course it rhymes with my name."


"Why, so it does!"


"Anyway, it gave me-in the dream-an awful feeling of despair, and the dream changed. This time, I dreamed I was standing outside my stateroom in the little dark corridor, or cul-de-sac, and trying to find the
door-handle to let myself in. I was in my pajamas, and again I was very cold. And at this point I woke up . . The extraordinary thing is thats exactly where I was!"


"Good Heavens. How strange!"


"Yes. And now the question is, where had I been? I was frightened,
when I came to-not unnaturally. For among other things I did have'
quite definitely, the feeling that I had been somewhere. Somewhere where
it was very cold. It doesn't sound very proper. Suppose I had been seen!"
"That might have been awkward," said Miss Dean.
"Awkward! It might indeed. It's very singular. I've never done such
a thing before. It's this sort of thing that reminds one-rather whole-
somely, perhaps, don't you think?"-and Mr. Arcularis gave a nervous
little laugh-"how extraordinarily little we know about the workings of
our own minds or souls. After all, what do we know?"
"Nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing," said Miss Dean slowly.
"Absolutely nothing."


Their voices had dropped, and again they were silent; and again they
looked at each other gently and sympathetically, as if for the exchange
of something unspoken and perhaps unspeakable. Time ceased. The
orbit-so it seemed to Mr. Arcularis-once more became pure, became
absolute. And once more he found himself wondering who it was that
Miss Dean-Clarice Dean-reminded him of. Long ago and far away.
Like those pictures of the islands and mountains. The little freckle-faced
girl at the hospital was merely, as it were, the stepping-stone, the sign-
post, or, as in algebra, the "equals" sign. But what was it they both
equalled"? The jackstones came again into his mind and his Aunt
Julia's rose-garden-at sunset; but this was ridiculous. It couldn't be
simply that they reminded him of his childhood! And yet why not?


They went into the lounge. The ship's orchestra, in the oval-shaped
balcony among faded palms, was playing the finale of "Cavalleria Rusti-
cana," playing it badly.


"Good God!" said Mr. Arcularis, "can't I ever escape from that damned
sentimental tune? It's the last thing I heard in America, and the last
thing I want to hear."
^But don't you like it?"


"As music? No! It moves me too much, but in the wrong way."
"What, exactly, do you mean?"


"Exactly? Nothing. When I heard it at the hospital-when was it?— it
made me feel like crying. Three old Italians tootling it in the rain. I
suppose, like most people, I'm afraid of my feelings."
"Are they so dangerous?"


"Now then, young woman! Are you pulling my leg?"
The stewards had rolled away the carpets, and the passengers were
beginning to dance. Miss Dean accepted the invitation of a young officer
and Mr. Arcularis watched them with envy. Odd, that last exchange of
remarks-very odd; in fact, everything was odd. Was it possible°that
they were falling in love? Was that what it was all about-all these con-
cealed references and recollections? He had read of such things. But at
his age! And with a girl of twenty-two!


After an amused look at his old friend Polaris from the open door
on the sheltered side, he went to bed.


The rhythm of the ship's engines was positively a persecution. It gave
one no rest, it followed one like the Hound of Heaven, it drove one out
into space and across the Milky Way and then back home by way of
Betelgeuse. It was cold there, too. Mr. Arcularis, making the round trip
by way of Betelgeuse and Polaris, sparkled with frost. He felt like a
Christmas tree. Icicles on his fingers and icicles on his toes. He tinkled
and spangled in the void, halloed to the waste echoes, rounded the buoy
on the verge of the Unknown, and tacked glitteringly homeward. The
wind whistled. He was barefooted. Snowflakes and tinsel blew past him.
Next time, by George, he would go farther still-for altogether it was
rather a lark. Forward into the untrodden! as somebody said. Some
intrepid explorer of his own backyard, probably, some middle-aged pro-
fessor with an umbrella: those were the fellows for courage! But give
us time, thought Mr. Arcularis, give us time, and we will bring back with
us the nightrime of the Obsolute. Or was it Absolete? If only there
weren't this perpetual throbbing, this iteration of sound, like a pain,
these circles and repetitions of light-the feeling as of everything coiling
inward to a center of misery ...


Suddenly it was dark, and he was lost. He was groping, he touched
the cold, white, slippery woodwork with his fingernails, looking for an
electric switch. The throbbing of course, was the throbbing of the ship.
But he was almost home-almost home. Another corner to round, a door
to be opened, and there he would be. Safe and sound. Safe in his father's


home. ii-i i.


It was at this point that he woke up: in the corridor that led to the
dining saloon. Such pure terror, such horror, seized him as he had never
known. His heart felt as if it would stop beating. His back was towards
the dining saloon; apparently he had just come from it. He was in his
pajamas. The corridor was dim, all but two lights having been turned
out for the night, and-thank God!-deserted. Not a soul, not a sound. He
was perhaps fifty yards from his room. With luck he could get to it un-
seen. Holding tremulously to the rail that ran along the wall, a brown,
greasy rail, he began to creep his way forward. He felt very weak, very
dizzy, and his thoughts refused to concentrate. Vaguely he remembered
Miss Dean-Clarice-and the freckled girl, as if they were one and the
same person. But he wasn't in the hospital, he was on the ship. Of course.
How absurd. The Great Circle. Here we are, old fellow . . . steady
round the corner . . . hold hard to your umbrella ...


In his room, with the door safely shut behind him, Mr. Arcularis broke
into a cold sweat. He had no sooner got into his bunk, shivering, than he
heard the night watchman pass.


"But where-" he thought, closing his eyes in agony- have I


been? . . ."


A dreadful idea had occurred to him.


"It's nothing serious-how could it be anything serious? Of course it's
nothing serious," said Mr. Arcularis.


"No, it's nothing serious," said the ship's doctor urbanely.


"I knew you'd think so. But just the same-"


"Such a condition is the result of worry," said the doctor. "Are you
womed-do you mind telling me-about something? Just try to think."


"Worried?"


Mr. Arcularis knitted his brows. Was there something? Some little
mosquito of a cloud disappearing into the southwest, the northeast?
Some little gnat-song of despair? But no, that was all over. All over.


"Nothing," he said, "nothing whatever."


"It's very strange," said the doctor.


"Strange! I should say so. I've come to sea for a rest, not for a night-
mare! What about a bromide?"


"Well, I can give you a bromide, Mr. Arcularis-"


"Then, please, if you don't mind, give me a bromide."


He carried the little phial hopefully to his stateroom, and took a dose
at once. He could see the sun through his porthole. It looked northern
and pale and small, like a little peppermint, which was only natural
enough, for the latitude was changing with every hour. But why was it
that doctors were all alike? and all, for that matter, like his father, or
that fellow at the hospital? Smythe, his name was. Doctor Smythe. A
nice, dry little fellow, and they said he was a writer. Wrote poetry or
something like that. Poor fellow-disappointed. Like everybody else.
Crouched in there, in his cabin, night after night, writing blank verse
or something-all about the stars and flowers and love and death- ice
and the sea and the infinite; time and tide-well, every man to his own
taste.


"But it's nothing serious," said Mr. Arcularis, later, to the parson. "How
could it be?"


"Why, of course not, my dear fellow," said the parson, patting his
back. "How could it be?"


"I know it isn't and yet I worry about it."


"It would be ridiculous to think it serious," said the parson.


Mr. Arcularis shivered: it was colder than ever. It was said that they
were near icebergs. For a few hours in the morning there had been a
fog, and the siren had blown-devastatingly-at three-minute intervals.
Icebergs caused fog-he knew that.


"These things always come," said the parson, "from a sense of guilt.
You feel guilty about something. I won't be so rude as to inquire what
it is. But if you could rid yourself of the sense of guilt—"


And later still, when the sky was pink:


"But is it anything to worry about?" said Miss Dean. "Really?"


"No, I suppose not."


"Then don't worry. We aren't children any longer!"


"Aren't we? I wonder!"


They leaned, shoulders touching, on the deck-rail, and looked at the sea,
which was multitudinously incarnadined. Mr. Arcularis scanned the hori-
zon in vain for an iceberg.


"Anyway," he said, "the colder we are the less we feel!


"I hope that's no reflection on you," said Miss Dean.


"Here . . . feel my hand," said Mr. Arcularis.


"Heaven knows it's cold!"


"It's been to Polaris and back! No wonder."


"Poor thing, poor thing!"


"Warm it."


"May I?"


"You can."


"I'll try."


Laughing, she took his hand between both of hers, one palm under
and one palm over, and began rubbing it briskly. The decks were de-
serted, no one was near them, everyone was dressing for dinner. The
sea grew darker, the wind blew colder.


"I wish I could remember who you are," he said.


"And you— who are you?"


"Myself."


"Then perhaps I am yourself."


"Don't be metaphysical!"


"But I am metaphysical!"


She laughed, withdrew, pulled the light coat about her shoulders.


The bugle blew the summons for dinner-"The Roast Beef of Old
England"-and they walked together along the darkening deck toward
the door, from which a shaft of soft light fell across the deck-rail. As
they stepped over the brass door-sill Mr. Arcularis felt the throb of the
engines again; he put his hand quickly to his side.
"Aw/ wiedersehen" he said. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.


Mr. Arcularis was finding it impossible, absolutely impossible, to keep
warm. A cold fog surrounded the ship, had done so, it seemed, for days.
The sun had all but disappeared, the transition from day to night was
almost unnoticeable. The ship, too, seemed scarcely to be moving-it
was as if anchored among walls of ice and rime. Monstrous, that merely
because it was June, and supposed, therefore, to be warm, the ship's
authorities should consider it unnecessary to turn on the heat! By day,
he wore his heavy coat and sat shivering in the corner of the smoking-
room. His teeth chattered, his hands were blue. By night, he heaped
blankets on his bed, closed the porthole's black eye against the sea, and
drew the yellow curtains across it, but in vain. Somehow, despite every-
thing, the fog crept in, and the icy fingers touched his throat. The stew-
ard, questioned about it, merely said, "Icebergs." Of course-any fool knew
that. But how long, in God's name, was it going to last? They surely
ought to be past the Grand Banks by this time! And surely it wasn't
necessary to sail to England by way of Greenland and Iceland!
Miss Dean— Clarice— was sympathetic.


"It's simply because," she said, "your vitality has been lowered by
your illness. You can't expect to be your normal self so soon after an
operation! When was your operation, by the way?"


Mr. Arcularis considered. Strange-he couldn't be quite sure. It was
all a little vague-his sense of time had disappeared.


"Heavens knows!" he said. "Centuries ago. When I was a tadpole and
you were a fish. I should think it must have been about the time of the
Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Or perhaps when I was a Neanderthal man
with a club!"


"Are you sure it wasn't farther back still?"
What did she mean by that?


"Not at all. Obviously, we've been on this damned ship for ages-
for eras-for aeons. And even on this ship, you must remember, I've had
plenty of time, in my nocturnal wanderings, to go several times to Orion
and back. I'm thinking, by the way, of going farther still. There's a nice
little star off to the left, as you round Betelgeuse, which looks as if it
might be right at the edge. The last outpost of the finite. I think I'll have
a look at it and bring you back a frozen rime-feather."
"It would melt when you got it back."
"Oh, no, it wouldn't-not on this ship!"
Clarice laughed.


"I wish I could go with you," she said.
"If only you would! If only—"


He broke off his sentence and looked hard at her-how lovely she was,
and how desirable! No such woman had ever before come into his life-
there had been no one with whom he had at once felt so profound a
sympathy and understanding. It was a miracle, simply-a miracle. No
need to put his arm around her or to kiss her-delightful as such small
vulgarities would be. He had only to look at her, and to feel, gazing into
those extraordinary eyes, that she knew him, had always known him. It
was as if, indeed, she might be his own soul.


But as he looked thus at her, reflecting, he noticed that she was frown-
ing.


"What is it?" he said.


She shook her head, slowly.


"I don't know."


"Tell me."


"Nothing. It just occurred to me that perhaps you weren't looking quite
so well."


Mr. Arcularis was startled. He straightened himself up.


"What nonsense! Of course this pain bothers me-and I feel astonish-
ingly weak—"


"It's more than that— much more than that. Something is worrying you
horribly." She paused, and then with an air of challenging him, added,
"Tell me, did you?"


Her eyes were suddenly asking him blazingly the question he had
been afraid of. He flinched, caught his breath, looked away. But it was


no use, as he knew: he would have to tell her. He had known all along
that he would have to tell her.


"Clarice," he said-and his voice broke in spite of his effort to control
it— "it's killing me, it's ghastly! Yes, I did"


His eyes filled with tears, he saw that her own had done so also, She
put her hand on his arm.


"I knew," she said. "I knew. But tell me."


"It's happened twice again-*u;ice-and each time I was farther away.
The same dream of going round a star, the same terrible coldness and
helplessness. That awful whistling curve . . ." He shuddered.


"And when you woke up-" she spoke quietly- 'where were you when
you woke up? Don't be afraid!"


"The first time I was at the farther end of the dining saloon. I had my
hand on the door that leads into the pantry."
"I see. Yes. And the next time?"


Mr Arcularis wanted to close his eyes in terror-he felt as if he were
going mad. His lips moved before he could speak, and when at last he
did speak it was in a voice so low as to be almost a whisper.


"I was at the bottom of the stairway that leads down from the pantry
to the hold, past the refrigerating-plant. It was dark, and I was crawling
on my hands and knees . . . Crawling on my hands and knees! . . .
"Oh!" she said, and again, "Oh!"


He began to tremble violently; he felt the hand on his arm trembling
also. And then he watched a look of unmistakable horror come slowly
into Clarice's eyes, and a look of understanding, as if she saw . . . She
tightened her hold on his arm.


"Do you think . . ." she whispered.


They stared at each other. t


"I know," he said. "And so do you . . . Twice more-three times-and
I'll be looking down into an empty . . ."


It was then that they first embraced-then, at the edge of the infinite,
at the last signpost of the finite. The clung together desperately, for-
lornly, weeping as they kissed each other, staring hard one moment and
closing their eyes the next. Passionately, passionately, she kissed him, as
if she were indeed trying to give him her warmth, her life.


"But what nonsense!" she cried, leaning back and holding his ^ face
between her hands, her hands which were wet with his tears. What
nonsense! It can't be!"


"It is," said Mr. Arcularis slowly. „


"But how do you know? . . . How do you know where the-


For the first time Mr. Arcularis smiled.


"Don't be afraid, darling-you mean the coffin?"


"How could you know where it is?" .


"I don't need to," said Mr. Arcularis ..."Im already almost there.


Before they separated for the night, in the smoking-room, they had
several whisky cocktails.


"We must make it gay!" Mr. Arcularis said. Above all, we must make


it gay. Perhaps even now it will turn out to be nothing but a nightmare
from which both of us will wake! And even at the worst, at my present
rate of travel, I ought to need two or more nights! It's a long way, still to
that little star."


The parson passed them at the door.


"What! turning in so soon?" he said. "I was hoping for a game of


"Yes, both turning in. But tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow, then, Miss Dean! And good-night'"
"Good-night." '


They walked once round the deck, then leaned on the railing and
stared into the fog. It was thicker and whiter than ever. The ship was
m< ^ mg i barely P erce P tibl y> & e Aythm of the engines was slower, more
subdued and remote, and at regular intervals, mournfully, came the long
reverberating cry of the foghorn. The sea was calm, and lapped only
very tenderly against the side of the ship, the sound coming up to them
clearly, however, because of the profound stillness.


" 'On such a night as this- " quoted Mr. Arcularis grimly.
" 'On such a night as this- "


Their voices hung suspended in the night, time ceased for them, for
an eternal instant they were happy. When at last they parted it was
by tacit agreement on a note of the ridiculous.
"Be a good boy and take your bromide!" she said.
"Yes, mother, I'll take my medicine!"


In his stateroom, he mixed himself a strong potion of bromide, a very
strong one, and got into bed. He would have no trouble in falling' asleep:
he felt more tired, more supremely exhausted, than he had ever been in
his life; nor had bed ever seemed so delicious. And that long, magnificent,
delirious swoop of dizziness ... the Great Circle ... the swift path-
way to Arcturus . . .


It was all as before, but infinitely more rapid. Never had Mr. Arcularis
achieved such phenomenal, such supernatural, speed. In no time at all
he was beyond the moon, shot past the North Star as if it were standing
still (which perhaps it was?), swooped in a long, bright curve round the
Pleiades, shouted his frosty greetings to Betelgeuse, and was off to the
little blue star which pointed the way to the unknown. Forward into the
untrodden! Courage, old man, and hold on to your umbrella! Have you
got your garters on? Mind your hat! In no time at all we'll be back to
Clarice with the frozen time-feather, the rime-feather, the snowflake of
the Absolute, the Obsolete. If only we don't wake ... if only we needn't
wake ... if only we don't wake in that-in that-time and space . . .
somewhere or nowhere . . . cold and dark . . . "Cavalleria Rusticana"
sobbing among the palms; if a lonely ... if only ... the coffers of the
poor-not coffers, not coffers, not coffers. Oh, God, not coffers, but light,
delight, supreme white and brightness, and above all whirling lightness,
whirling lightness above all— and freezing— freezing— freezing . .


At this point in the void the surgeon's last effort to save Mr. Arcularis's


life had failed. He stood back from the operating table and made a tired
gesture with a rubber-gloved hand.


"It's all over," he said. "As I expected."


He looked at Miss Hoyle, whose gaze was downward, at the basin she
held. There was a moment's stillness, a pause, a brief flight of unex-
changed comment, and then the ordered life of the hospital was resumed.

Branch Line to Benceston by Sir Andrew Caldecott

Branch Line to Benceston

1

Although to know Adrian Frent was not necessarily to like him, he interested me from the very first. If his life contained much of the ordinary, the manner of his death was very far out of it; the biographical portion of these notes is therefore by way of preface to the mystery of his end.

I had lived at Brensham for two years before the Garden City Company showed any intention of extending Ruskin Road. So long as it remained a cul-de-sac the peace of my bachelor homestead would remain undisturbed, for beyond it lay only a wilderness of weed and bramble between the road's end and the Bren river. I watched therefore with misgiving a gradual clearing by the Company's roadmen of this barren strip and the construction by them of a gravel track down its centre. But I need not have worried, for a bridging of the Bren on a purely residential thoroughfare was quite beyond the Company's financial resources, and the sole purpose of the extension was to afford access to a vacant building lot on the side opposite to me and nearer to the river. On this quickly arose 'Brenside' and into it as first tenant moved Adrian Frent.

My first glimpse of him was during a reconnaissance made by me along the river bank for that very purpose. What would be the looks of a man whom I might have to live next to for long years naturally aroused my curiosity. Nor was my first impression unfavourable. I saw a man of nearly six feet, clean-shaven, oval-faced, dark-haired, well-knit and smartly tailored. Without hesitation I made up my mind to call as soon as he was comfortably settled in.

I did so some ten days later and found him very pleased to be doing host in his new house. Brenside had been wisely planned to provide one really large room, on the window side of which stood an Erard grand piano on glass castors. In front lay a large Persian rug, on whose beautiful and expensive expanse none of the surrounding leathered chairs were allowed to impinge. The pictures on the walls were all of religious subjects, though not pertaining to the same religion. They included a coloured print of the Sistine Madonna, a silver-point drawing of the Hermes of Praxiteles, a rather wishy-washy sketch in water colour of the Buddha, and an enlarged photograph of Hindu frescoes in the Ajanta Caves. There were two large bookcases, one containing books whose titles I could not see from the chair into which Frent beckoned me, and the other largely filled by bound volumes of the Railway Magazine. Immediately above them was a scale model of a locomotive protected by an oblong glass frame.

This miniature engine and the magazines offended my aesthetic sensibility by their incongruity with the other furnishings, and made me curious to ascertain the nature of the books in the other case. Finding excuse in a draught from the window I soon transferred myself to a nearer seat whence my eye fell on a representative and well-bound collection of English classics, both in prose and poetry. The only exceptions were gathered on a shelf to themselves and might be categorised under the title borne by the largest of them, which was Herbs, Simples, Drugs and Poisons.

Frent caught my inquisitive glance. 'One of my many hobbies,' he explained. 'I grow them, you know. That's why I've chosen a place by the river. I lost a lot of valuable stuff last year at Tenford during the August drought. I'm going to make the garden here a herbalist's paradise; you must drop in occasionally and see how it's getting on. I've got my eye on the small greenhouse as a future laboratory. I not only grow the plants but I make them into medicines. I always make my own insecticides and the vermifuges for my dogs. They're in the kennel now, under treatment; come along and see them.' Leading me out by a side door he introduced me to two liver-coloured dachshunds in one of the outhouses. They were almost offensively affectionate, after the nature of their breed. 'I adore dogs,' he said. I was glad that he did not see me wince, but I hate men to use the word 'adore': it is woman's property.

Business men on their daily trek from Brensham to the City have a choice of three trains. The 8.47 runs you through to Cripplegate and is uncomfortably crowded. The 8.59 has a slightly superior clientèle but lands you at St Euston's Cross, midway between east and west, whence it is necessary to proceed by Underground. The 9.15, similarly bound, is patronised only by such as are in positions to determine for themselves their times of arrival and departure. It was in this third train that I met Frent next morning, and thereby placed him in the category of employer rather than of employee. Nor was my inference at fault, as I learned from his conversation on the way up. He was a partner in the firm of Frent, Frent & Saxon Limited, Music Publishers of 2 3 Great Penchester Street. His father, who had died last year, had left him in joint managership with Paul Saxon; whom indeed I remembered, somewhat indistinctly, as a fellow member of the Junior Camisis before its absorption by the older University Clubs.

It did not take me long, listening to Frent's talk, to realise that here was a case of a business house being very much divided against itself. To put the matter in a nutshell, Adrian was musically a severe classicist while Saxon was crazy on jazz. Each had, I gathered, in his own line brought grist to the common mill. Frent had at the unlimited expense of an aunt of the composer, who contributed also a frontispiece, published in album form Julian Grinley's 'Twelve Dream Pieces for Pianoforte'. Saxon undoubtedly struck a good bargain when he acquired publishing rights over a Jazz series which included such astonishing 'hits' as 'Gioconda' and 'Bendigo'. The pity of it was that each, while sharing in it, grudged the other his success.

Daily travelling in the same compartment Frent and I soon found ourselves on terms of acquaintance that bordered on intimacy. This was because I was glad to find him interesting and he glad to find someone whom he interested. I derived entertainment even from his knowledge of locomotives and running schedules and, acquiring the jargon of the initiate, was soon speaking of the permanent way as 'the road' and of signals being 'on' or 'off instead of up and down. His tales of railway history especially appealed to me, and (after he had pointed out the gas works siding which leaves the main line just north of Ponsden Priory as being all that now remains of an aborted London, Middlehampton and East Coast Railway) I often found my eyes straying from my evening paper, as we jerked over the junction points, towards the heavy gates that closed the siding against the main line of which it had been intended to form a most important branch. In moments of despondency the tale of this siding would appear to me as an allegory of what had happened to so many pet projects of my own scheming!

2

I forget the exact date of Frent's coming to Brenside, but it was at the beginning of March. On the 17th April poor old Miss Lurgashall of Rosedene, Hesseltine Road, was trapped in her bedroom and burned to death when the house took fire from defects in the electrical insulation. Rosedene and Brenside had been designed by the same architect and in both plans the front and back stairs occupied respectively the fore and rear of the middle section of the building. This arrangement, comparing it to a central flue, the coroner described as a death-trap. A criticism so characteristic of a Coroner's obiter dicta naturally passed unheeded by hundreds of people whose houses were on a similar plan: but not by Adrian Frent.

'What are you going to do about your stairs?' he asked me.

'Nothing,' I replied, 'and you?'

'I'm having a fire escape put in from the box room next to my bedroom.'

'That'll cost you something!'

'Oh! not much. All one needs is a trap-door and a length of rope. We used to have several of them at my prep. school. In case of emergency one lifts the trap, throws down the rope and swarms down it hand over hand. Cheap and easy! I'm a bit of a carpenter, as you know, and I cut the trap-door yesterday. Now all that remains to do is to get a rope.'

'You'll need a staple to fix it to,' I pointed out; 'and that means a hole through the wall and a plate.'

'Oh! I know of an odd job man who'll fix that up for me in no time and at very small charge. I strongly advise you to follow my example.'

I have recorded the above conversation for the reason (as well as for another which will appear later) that it well illustrates a basic defect in Frent's character. He was always starting things without consideration of their full implications and dropping them when he ran up against difficulties. In the present instance the example which he bade me follow was never set, for neither staple nor rope eventuated. He just forgot about them. It was the same story with his piano playing: he had excellent taste and touch, but I have seldom known him to play a piece right through. As soon as he came to a tricky passage he would break off with a 'sorry, I'm out of practice!' I suspected, however, that he had never been in practice, for he hated drudgery and all his activities lacked perseverance and system. Take, for instance, the death of his dachshunds, the cause of which he never revealed to me. The Vet., however, did. They had been poisoned by draughts out of a wrong bottle! How a man who prided himself on concocting his own insecticides and vermifuges could have been so careless passed my comprehension. Nor did the loss of these pets cause him any observable sorrow. I sometimes wondered in fact whether he did not derive a greater pleasure from the artistic little headstones that he had placed over their graves than any that the dogs ever afforded him while alive.

As these sentences flow from my pen I am conscious that they become increasingly critical of Adrian Frent. This is not from any desire on my part to play the role of dissecting moralist, but because my portrait of the man cannot be rendered faithful or lifelike without painting in the shadows. He certainly suffered no qualms himself about personal criticisms, for his daily conversations with me became more and more charged with venom against 'the Klaxon' as he now insisted on calling his partner. His outbursts would indeed have been wearisome but for the many amusing turns of phrase and fancy with which he embellished them. Nevertheless, my conscience would sometimes accuse me of abetting slander; and by way of appeasing it I argued to myself that, by allowing Frent to blow off steam, I was preventing the accrual to his animosity of any explosive quality that might be generated by enforced repression.

As the summer wore on we dropped in frequently at each other's houses, and I was privileged to see the burgeoning of the Herbalist's Paradise. These were his words, not mine; for a meaner collection of disreputable weeds could be hardly imagined: The only lasting memory of my inspection of it is of his telling me that what I still continue to call 'Deadly Nightshade' is neither Nightshade nor deadly. The so-called laboratory in the little greenhouse was equally unimpressive; indeed it reminded me of nothing so much as the pitiful messes that children will make out of leaves and berries to serve as 'pretence food' in their toy dinner services. I could not but remember the sad end of those two dachshunds and found myself viewing the disarray of bottles, tins and saucers with mounting distaste. Frent perhaps discerned these thoughts. 'Come along indoors,' he said, 'and I will play you the March Funèbre out of that Beethoven Sonata.' The movement contains no really difficult passages and he did it justice. It little occurred to me that it was the last thing that I should hear him play.

3

September the fourteenth is my birthday, and I am able to set that date with certainty against the events that follow. I had lunched at his club with my brother Gerald and, taking the afternoon off, made to catch the three-thirty at St Euston's Cross. I had hardly settled down in a corner seat before, to my surprise, in got Frent. I had never known him take so early a train before, and the fuss that he was in made me ask the reason.

'I'm through for good with Saxon,' he explained, 'and we shall have to dissolve partnership. I just hate him and all his works; and he knows it and trades on it. All our publications are now on his side of the show. I simply have to agree to everything he demands in order to get him out of my room. He knows how I loathe whistling and humming, but he hums or whistles his filthy jazz the whole working day, blast him! He rubs it in too about my daily bread being buttered with croon and swing. That "Lulu on the Lilo" tune is the rottenest stuff the house has ever published; and yet it's netted us some three hundred quid already. Tainted money I call it!'

At this point Frent thumped his despatch case into the luggage rack, and stood over me while he continued: 'and now this morning he comes and leans over my desk, breathing his beastly 'flu into my very nostrils. He knows well enough how prone I am to colds and how careful I have to be to avoid infection. And then to cap it all, he asks me to lend him my quack sniffle cure, as he thinks it funny to call it: Well, he asked for it and he's got it: I hope it chokes him!'

'As your worm mixture did the dachshunds,' I laughingly interposed.

Frent slowly sat down and scowled at me. It was the first time that I had made him angry. 'Can't you let me forget those damned dogs?' he snapped; and then added self-pityingly, 'what I need is a rest and a change of scene. Saxon's put all my nerves on edge.'

As the train glided out of the gloom of the roofed terminus into unimpeded daylight I was shocked to see Frent's face. It was lined, drawn and grey: an ugly yellow-grey. The man was patently unwell.

'I'm sorry, old man,' I said sympathetically. 'If I were you I would take a long week-end and run down to the seaside.'

'That's a good idea,' he muttered, and for the next quarter of an hour made a show of reading the evening paper, though his attention appeared far from concentrated on it.

The rolling-stock used on the three-thirty consists chiefly of old six-wheelers, and progress became bumpy as we gained speed. After rattling through Ponsden Priory station the carriage gave a bigger jolt than usual over the siding junction and something fell tinkling on to the floor. Frent's pince-nez, always precariously perched, had been jerked off his nose and I waited for him to pick them up. He remained however stock still with fingers outspread on his knees, staring down at the paper which had fallen over his feet. He looked so dazed and helpless that stooping forward myself I picked up the pince-nez and handed them up to him. After regarding them curiously for a few moments he lifted his eyes questioningly to mine and said, 'Thank you, sir: but are you sure they're mine'

'They were on your nose a moment ago!'

'Ah! Were they? I had forgotten. You must excuse me, but everything seems suddenly to have gone out of my head. It's quite extraordinary. For instance, your face seems familiar to me and I feel sure that we must have met each other before: but at the moment I've entirely forgotten your name. I'm so sorry.'

Not only Frent's face but the impersonal note in his voice, as though he were repeating a lesson, startled and distressed me. I felt relieved somehow that there was no third person in the compartment to overhear his conversation. He was undoubtedly seized by some sudden illness and consequent abnormality, and it must devolve on me to get him home to Brenside safely and without incident. It is strange how in emergency one sometimes finds the policeman element in one's character taking charge and directing operations. It was so now; for I heard myself addressing Frent in a calm and custodial manner that surprised me.

'My name is Johnson and yours is Frent,' I said. 'We live next to each other in Ruskin Road, Brensham, which is the next stop. You have been working too hard and worrying too much, and as a result your brain has gone temporarily on strike. But don't you bother about that. Go on reading your paper' (I picked it up for him) 'and when we reach Brensham I'll see you home and call in the doctor. He'll soon put you right again.'

Frent received my remarks with a passive and childlike acceptance and, save that I experienced an uncomfortable sensation of walking with a somnambulist, we reached Brenside without trouble. Having explained to the parlourmaid that her master had been taken ill I got him to lie down on a sofa and rang up Dr Jameson.

The latter was round within five minutes, and having looked at Frent and taken his pulse, he peremptorily and monosyllabically enjoined 'bed'. A telephone enquiry of the Brensham District Nursing Guild elicited that Nurse Margison was immediately available, and in less than half an hour she had Frent and Brenside in her charge.

'Let's drop in at your place, and I'll prescribe for you too,' said Jameson as we walked away. 'You must have had an anxious time getting that fellow home.'

He joined with me in taking his own prescription: it was 'a stiff one'.

4

Frent lay in bed five days before recovery. He was described by Miss Margison as an ideal patient; which meant that he slept most of the time, asked no questions and did whatever she told him.

It was on the second or third day that I read in my morning paper of Paul Saxon's death from influenza. The attack, a severe one, had been aggravated by acute gastric complications and had terminated, fatally, in pneumonia. Frent's fulminations against his partner had led me to envisage a Philistine of the Philistines. I was surprised therefore to read in the obituary notice of a distinguished academic career and of his identity with Publics' in the Bi-monthly Review, whose articles on art and literature I always enjoyed and admired.

I was permitted to visit Frent at the very outset of his recovery. His first request was indeed that he might see me. Considering that he might be said to have lost his self for several days I found him almost incongruously self-possessed. Before him lay a letter from Lyster, his Company's manager, reporting the circumstances of Saxon's death.

'How extremely annoying of him,' Frent complained, 'to die just when the doctor orders me a holiday. I simply must clear up the mess he will have left and it will take several weeks. All the same I shall have to run down to Benceston for a few days before long.'

'Benceston?' I queried.

Frent's face suddenly showed again (it may have been due to a reflection of sunset glow on the ceiling) the same deep lines and yellow-grey colour that had worried me in the train.

'I don't know what made me say Benceston,' he continued; 'any seaside resort would do; but I feel that I must get a whiff of the sea. By the way Saxon's funeral was this afternoon: I hope they didn't jazz the Dead March.'

The last words were those of a cad but, in consideration for Frent's state, I let them pass and the conversation slipped into generalities. For some reason, however, he gave me the impression of trying to drag our talk round to some subject from which, as soon as he had manoeuvred it into proximity, he veered away in distaste. It was an unpleasant sensation, and after half an hour or so I made as though to take my departure by asking whether I might send him over anything to read.

'Have you by any chance got a book called The Bad Lands?' he replied.

'I'm afraid not: but I remember reading a short story under that name: by John Metcalfe, I think.'

Frent seemed quite excited.

Was it about a fellow being in two places at the same time, and doing something criminal in one of them while he thought he was doing something good in the other?'

'I don't think,' I protested, 'that the author would appreciate such a crude summary! The tale was extraordinarily well and carefully written.'

'And, in the light of modern conceptions of space and time, very likely a true one!'

'What on earth do you mean, Frent?'

'I mean that space can get kinks and double back over and under itself. Of course you know all that.'

'I most certainly do not, and I'm perfectly certain that you don't either. You must have been reading some such tosh as Einstein Without Tears or Brainfood for the Brainless. You had far better stick to your old Railway Magazines.'

'I know far more, Johnson, than you guess and than I wish. Some day, perhaps, I'll try to explain: but not now. Au revoir! and many thanks for coming round.'

I had recently purchased in five large volumes a series of maps of the counties of Great Britain with combined index. On reaching my house I went straight to the study and, taking down the index from its shelf, looked up 'Benceston'. My suspicions were not relieved. There was no such place.

5

I never met Frent again in the train after his recovery. This was because he changed his route and travelled from Wentlow, for East Brensham, to King's Pancras. This involved him in a mile and a half walk morning and evening; which, as being conducive to his good health, he gave as a reason for the change. His looks however belied the explanation. His condition indeed caused Dr Jameson and myself increasing anxiety; and my uneasiness was aggravated by his point blank refusal to consult Jameson professionally or to call in any other doctor. It was reassuring therefore when he informed us that a cousin, Gilbert Frent-Sutton, was coming to live with him.

This cousin, he told us, was a Fellow of All Saints and a recognised authority on the Middle Ages. He did not tell us, but we soon found out, that his cousin was also to be identified with Frent-Sutton the old Camford rugger blue. From the moment he arrived we recognised in him a man who would stand no nonsense; and we therefore felt happier about Frent, who was already in visible danger of going all to pieces unless he had somebody to help to keep him together.

A week or so after Frent-Sutton's arrival the doctor and I were invited by telephone to drop in together at Brenside and have a drink. At the gate we were met by Frent-Sutton.

'Before we go in,' he said, 'I owe you both an explanation. Adrian refuses, Doctor, to call you in professionally; but I got him to ask you round (using you, Johnson, as a sort of decoy) for a drink. The important thing is that, having attended him after his collapse, you should see him now and observe his present condition. It needs tackling at once. He has never told you yet about his delusions, though he suspects Johnson of having inferred their peculiar nature. Tonight he has promised to make a clean breast of them, and I fancy that you will find them important from the medical standpoint.'

We went in and, sitting in a half-circle round the fire, began our drinks over the usual small talk. Frent-Sutton was, however, a believer in getting to grips with a job quickly and broke in early with a request that Adrian would tell us all about his Benceston business. 'Tell us everything, old man: right from the very beginning when your father and old Saxon held the stage.'

'I'll try,' responded Frent, not at all averse to becoming the centre of our interest, 'and I'll make it as short as I can. Our firm's name, you know, is Frent, Frent and Saxon; and that is because when my father turned the show into a limited liability company he kept a third share for himself and reserved a second third for me (against the day when I should have grown up and proved my business capacity), while he allowed his manager, old Saxon, to take up the remaining third share.

'Old Saxon's boy and myself were unfortunately of the same age, and wherever my father sent me—to Heathcote, Winchingham and Oxbridge—old Saxon must needs send Paul. He dogged my footsteps everywhere and at both schools, and later at the Varsity, he excelled me both in games and work. My parents took shame from my inferiority and perpetually upbraided me with letting them down. As a result I grew to hate Paul and detested him the more for a desire on his part to fraternise.

'Finally we entered into the firm's business simultaneously; I to be my father's greatest disappointment and Paul to be his right-hand man and, at old Saxon's death, his energetic partner. Paul also inherited money from an aunt, and my father, in appreciation of his work, allowed him 'to purchase the share in the business which he had earmarked for me. On my father's death, therefore, I had only the one-third share in the business which I inherited from him against Paul's two. Frent, Frent and Saxon had become in reality Saxon, Saxon and Frent. I was permanently number two to my life's enemy; and during every day and hour of our partnership my hatred for him proliferated. It possessed my whole being.

'I don't very often go to church, but I had done so on the Sunday preceding my collapse in the train; and it was the parson's sermon that brought home to me the full significance of my hatred. He was preaching on sins of intention and quoted that text about a man committing fornication in his heart if he looks upon a woman lasciviously. The same logic, the parson pointed out, applies to the other commandments. Many people might regard themselves as pretty safe against a breach of the sixth; but we must remember that anybody who allowed his imagination to dwell on how much nicer things would be if only so-and-so were out of the way had already committed murder in his heart. I at once realised this to be true. I was murdering Paul daily: and, quite clearly, it was my duty both to him and myself that I should cut adrift from our partnership.

'Nevertheless, I delayed doing it, fearing the explanation which Saxon would demand and the loss of employment in which it must land me. This delay added further fuel to my hate. You will remember, Johnson, how, in the train that day, you joked about the possibility of the cold cure which I had lent to Saxon proving as deadly as the dose that killed my dogs. That jest of yours brought me, with a jerk, bang up against the actuality that I had, in passing the bottle to Saxon, thought how easy and pleasant it would have been to hand over some poisonous mixture, if any such had been to hand. I tried to keep my mind off this memory by reading the paper, but without success, and then endeavoured to concentrate on other thoughts. Johnson knows my fondness for railway history and I had told him how an important railway project had ended ignominiously in a gasworks siding. I forced myself now to imagine what would have been the route of the abortive London, Middlehampton and East Coast Railway and what might have been the livery of its rolling stock. While my thoughts were being directed along these lines, we rattled through Ponsden Priory and, to my momentary surprise, I felt the train, instead of carrying straight on over the points, swing right-handed towards the siding. I say "momentary surprise" because, within a few seconds, it seemed perfectly right and natural to me that we should be travelling eastwards. I noticed the monogram, L.M. & E.C.R. on the antimacassars opposite and, above them, two pictures of Bencestonon-Sea and one of Bellringers Cliff. The scenery through which we were passing was also familiar, and I knew that before reaching Benceston the train would stop at Latteridge Junction to pick up passengers.

'I also had a certain foreboding that among the passengers we should pick up would be Paul Saxon. And so it turned out. As the train glided in, I spotted him out of the corner of my eye and surreptitiously watched him enter a compartment three doors off from mine.

'At Benceston West he got out, and I heard him tell a uniformed porter from Fotheringham Hotel to take up his suitcase.

'That gave me my cue. I journeyed on to the East Station and took up my quarters at the Porchester. Paul and I, therefore, had a good three miles between us and ample space in which to avoid each other.

'This, however, was not to be. Walking, next day, along the summit of Bellringers Cliff, I suddenly heard a whistling of that filthy tune, "Lulu on the Lilo", followed by a loathesomely hearty "By Jove! How are we? Fancy meeting you up here! I say, what a magnificent view of the sea one gets!" He stood at the edge of the cliff, gazing seaward. I took a hurried look to right and left. We were alone. Striking him from behind, on both shoulder blades, I caused him to overbalance and fall forward. I was alone. My heart thumped with the joy of quick decision and prompt execution. Glancing at my wrist watch, I saw that it was a quarter to three. I started singing, and was just about to peer over the edge, in order to see if Saxon's body had fallen on the rocks above or below tide-level, when a a large hand grabbed me by the arm and swung me round so that I faced inshore. My aggressor was a man of over six feet and broad in proportion.

'"I will see you to the Police Station," he said, "and, mind you, no tricks! Give me your right hand." I suppose that I fainted, for everything seemed to go misty and black, and the next thing of which I became conscious was lying in bed, here in this house.

'Now you three persons listening to my story have doubtless relegated this Benceston part of it to the realm of dreamland; and that was my intention also. In order to prevent any recurrence of the stimuli that led to the nightmare I gave up travelling to London via Ponsden and used the other line to King's Pancras. In doing so I forgot that I had returned from Benceston not by train, but in a faint or swoon; and I soon learned to my horror that this process was reversable. During the past few weeks I have re-visited Benceston many times in trance or swoon. I have stood my trial there for murder and heard sentence of death pronounced on me. The Governor of Benceston Prison has told me that my execution takes place tomorrow morning at eight. Give me a brandy, Gilbert.

'Thank you; that's better. Now I want all three of you to be here at that time tomorrow morning to protect me, and I will tell you why. I have noticed that things which happen at Benceston can simultaneously take place here, if in a different manner. For example, Saxon died from pneumonia at the same instant as I thrust him over Bell-ringers Cliff. The exact time of his death is one of the first things I ascertained after my return to work. Lyster had been at the deathbed. I have no doubt that punctually tomorrow morning, as the clock strikes eight, whatever it is that corresponds to me in Benceston will be hanged. Therefore you must agree to be here with me at that hour. I can see that you think me mad: but if you will do what I ask, I promise you that at five minutes past eight tomorrow you will find me sane and sensible beyond all doubt. Whatever it be at Benceston that shares my identity and usurps my consciousness will have been killed by then and myself set free. Do promise, therefore, to come without fail.'

Frent directed a beseeching look at each of us in turn, and each nodded his assent.

On our way home Jameson was, for him, unusually communicative.

'I shall have to get Hasterton on to this case. Frent may think that tomorrow morning will see the end of his delusions; but he is wrong. I know these symptoms, and there cannot be a sudden end to them.'

Nevertheless, there was.

6

The doctor called for me next morning, and at ten minutes to eight we walked across to Brenside.

On entering the hall, I was surprised to see the hands of the large chiming clock registering seven fifty-five.

'That clock's fast,' I said to Frent-Sutton as he came out of the drawing-room, followed by his cousin, to meet us.

'Oh, no! it can't be. Adrian's been on to the Exchange twice this morning. That's Greenwich time all right.'

For a man who, in his own apprehension, stood in danger of imminent death, Frent struck me as unexpectedly calm and collected. He bade us take chairs facing the clock, and we must have looked a strange group as we sat watching the dial. The tick of the pendulum acquired unusual sonority owing to our silence: a silence dictated for three of us by our consciousness of the fatuity of the whole proceeding.

A click and a cluck, followed by a whirring of small wheels, heralded the chimes, and I saw Frent dig his fingers into the leathered arm of his chair. The interval between the chimes and the hour gong seemed interminable; but, at last, the eight strokes droned out—and, as we had foreseen, nothing whatever happened.

'And now you chaps must celebrate my release! Thanks ever so much for seeing me through. We can't very well have whisky at this hour though! Gilbert, tell Ada to bring coffee quickly, while I dash upstairs and get a handkerchief.'

Both cousins had thus left the room when Jameson exclaimed suddenly: 'What's that?'

'What's what?'

'Listen!'

The morning breeze made them faint; but we heard unmistakably the chimes of Brensham parish church; and then the distant boom of the great hour bell.

Simultaneously, there came from almost above our heads a noise of rending, a cry, a crash, and, nearer to us still, a dull, heavy thud.

We rushed down the back passage, where we ran into Frent-Sutton as he hurried out from the pantry. In the wooden ceiling above us gaped a yard-square hole, and immediately below lay the ruin of a trap-door, with hinges torn from the supporting joist. It was Frent's fire-escape. Over what was close beside it the Doctor now leaned, and, having lifted one end, laid it gently back.

'Finish!' he said; 'broken neck.' And then, looking on the broken door beside him and up at the hole above, he added: 'Amateur carpentry and unseasoned wood! A fatal combination.'

'But why on earth,' I interjected, 'should he have gone into the box room?'

'And why,' murmured Frent-Sutton, 'should be have set that clock fast? He insisted on ringing up for the time and doing it himself!'

'Possibly,' Dr Jameson rose from his examination, 'they may know the answers to those questions in Benceston!' Possibly.

The Phantom Coach by Amelia B Edwards

The Phantom Coach


The circumstances I am about to relate to you have truth to recommend them. They happened to myself, and my recollection of them is as vivid as if they had taken place only yesterday. Twenty years, however, have gone by since that night. During those twenty years I have told the story to but one other person. I tell it now with a reluctance which I find it difficult to overcome. All I entreat, meanwhile, is that you will abstain from forcing your own conclusions upon me. I want nothing explained away. I desire no arguments. My mind on this subject is quite made up, and, having the testimony of my own senses to rely upon, I prefer to abide by it.

Well! It was just twenty years ago, and within a day or two of the end of the grouse season. I had been out all day with my gun, and had had no sport to speak of. The wind was due east; the month, December; the place, a bleak wide moor in the far north of England. And I had lost my way. It was not a pleasant place in which to lose one’s way, with the first feathery flakes of a coming snowstorm just fluttering down upon the heather, and the leaden evening closing in all around. I shaded my eyes with my hand, and stared anxiously into the gathering darkness, where the purple moorland melted into a range of low hills, some ten or twelve miles distant. Not the faintest smoke-wreath, not the tiniest cultivated patch, or fence, or sheep-track, met my eyes in any direction. There was nothing for it but to walk on, and take my chance of finding what shelter I could, by the way. So I shouldered my gun again, and pushed wearily forward; for I had been on foot since an hour after daybreak, and had eaten nothing since breakfast.

Meanwhile, the snow began to come down with ominous steadiness, and the wind fell. After this, the cold became more intense, and the night came rapidly up. As for me, my prospects darkened with the darkening sky, and my heart grew heavy as I thought how my young wife was already watching for me through the window of our little inn parlour, and thought of all the suffering in store for her throughout this weary night. We had been married four months, and, having spent our autumn in the Highlands, were now lodging in a remote little village situated just on the verge of the great English moorlands. We were very much in love, and, of course, very happy. This morning, when we parted, she had implored me to return before dusk, and I had promised her that I would. What would I not have given to have kept my word!

Even now, weary as I was, I felt that with a supper, an hour’s rest, and a guide, I might still get back to her before midnight, if only guide and shelter could be found.

And all this time, the snow fell and the night thickened. I stopped and shouted every now and then, but my shouts seemed only to make the silence deeper. Then a vague sense of uneasiness came upon me, and I began to remember stories of travellers who had walked on and on in the falling snow until, wearied out, they were fain to lie down and sleep their lives away. Would it be possible, I asked myself, to keep on thus through all the long dark night? Would there not come a time when my limbs must fail, and my resolution give way? When I, too, must sleep the sleep of death. Death! I shuddered. How hard to die just now, when life lay all so bright before me! How hard for my darling, whose whole loving heart but that thought was not to be borne! To banish it, I shouted again, louder and longer, and then listened eagerly. Was my shout answered, or did I only fancy that I heard a far-off cry? I halloed again, and again the echo followed. Then a wavering speck of light came suddenly out of the dark, shifting, disappearing, growing momentarily nearer and brighter. Running towards it at full speed, I found myself, to my great joy, face to face with an old man and a lantern.

“Thank God!” was the exclamation that burst involuntarily from my lips.

Blinking and frowning, he lifted his lantern and peered into my face.

“What for?” growled he, sulkily.

“Well—for you. I began to fear I should be lost in the snow.”

“Eh, then, folks do get cast away hereabouts fra’ time to time, an’ what’s to hinder you from bein’ cast away likewise, if the Lord’s so minded?”

“If the Lord is so minded that you and I shall be lost together, friend, we must submit,” I replied; “but I don’t mean to be lost without you. How far am I now from Dwolding?”

“A gude twenty mile, more or less.”

“And the nearest village?”

“The nearest village is Wyke, an’ that’s twelve mile t’other side.”

“Where do you live, then?”

“Out yonder,” said he, with a vague jerk of the lantern.

“You’re going home, I presume?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

The old man shook his head, and rubbed his nose reflectively with the handle of the lantern.

“It ain’t o’ no use,” growled he. “He ‘ont let you in—not he.”

“We’ll see about that,” I replied, briskly. “Who is He?”

“The master.”

“Who is the master?”

“That’s nowt to you,” was the unceremonious reply.

“Well, well; you lead the way, and I’ll engage that the master shall give me shelter and a supper to-night.”

“Eh, you can try him!” muttered my reluctant guide; and, still shaking his head, he hobbled, gnome-like, away through the falling snow. A large mass loomed up presently out of the darkness, and a huge dog rushed out, barking furiously.

“Is this the house?” I asked.

“Ay, it’s the house. Down, Bey!” And he fumbled in his pocket for the key.

I drew up close behind him, prepared to lose no chance of entrance, and saw in the little circle of light shed by the lantern that the door was heavily studded with iron nails, like the door of a prison. In another minute he had turned the key and I had pushed past him into the house.

Once inside, I looked round with curiosity, and found myself in a great raftered hall, which served, apparently, a variety of uses. One end was piled to the roof with corn, like a barn. The other was stored with flour-sacks, agricultural implements, casks, and all kinds of miscellaneous lumber; while from the beams overhead hung rows of hams, flitches, and bunches of dried herbs for winter use. In the centre of the floor stood some huge object gauntly dressed in a dingy wrapping-cloth, and reaching half way to the rafters. Lifting a corner of this cloth, I saw, to my surprise, a telescope of very considerable size, mounted on a rude movable platform, with four small wheels. The tube was made of painted wood, bound round with bands of metal rudely fashioned; the speculum, so far as I could estimate its size in the dim light, measured at least fifteen inches in diameter. While I was yet examining the instrument, and asking myself whether it was not the work of some self-taught optician, a bell rang sharply.

“That’s for you,” said my guide, with a malicious grin. “Yonder’s his room.”

He pointed to a low black door at the opposite side of the hall. I crossed over, rapped somewhat loudly, and went in, without waiting for an invitation. A huge, white-haired old man rose from a table covered with books and papers, and confronted me sternly.

“Who are you?” said he. “How came you here? What do you want?”

“James Murray, barrister-at-law. On foot across the moor. Meat, drink, and sleep.”

He bent his bushy brows into a portentous frown.

“Mine is not a house of entertainment,” he said, haughtily. “Jacob, how dared you admit this stranger?”

“I didn’t admit him,” grumbled the old man. “He followed me over the muir, and shouldered his way in before me. I’m no match for six foot two.”

“And pray, sir, by what right have you forced an entrance into my house?”

“The same by which I should have clung to your boat, if I were drowning. The right of self-preservation.”

“Self-preservation?”

“There’s an inch of snow on the ground already,” I replied, briefly; “and it would be deep enough to cover my body before daybreak.”

He strode to the window, pulled aside a heavy black curtain, and looked out.

“It is true,” he said. “You can stay, if you choose, till morning. Jacob, serve the supper.”

With this he waved me to a seat, resumed his own, and became at once absorbed in the studies from which I had disturbed him.

I placed my gun in a corner, drew a chair to the hearth, and examined my quarters at leisure. Smaller and less incongruous in its arrangements than the hall, this room contained, nevertheless, much to awaken my curiosity. The floor was carpetless. The whitewashed walls were in parts scrawled over with strange diagrams, and in others covered with shelves crowded with philosophical instruments, the uses of many of which were unknown to me. On one side of the fireplace, stood a bookcase filled with dingy folios; on the other, a small organ, fantastically decorated with painted carvings of mediæval saints and devils. Through the half-opened door of a cupboard at the further end of the room, I saw a long array of geological specimens, surgical preparations, crucibles, retorts, and jars of chemicals; while on the mantelshelf beside me, amid a number of small objects, stood a model of the solar system, a small galvanic battery, and a microscope. Every chair had its burden. Every corner was heaped high with books. The very floor was littered over with maps, casts, papers, tracings, and learned lumber of all conceivable kinds.

I stared about me with an amazement increased by every fresh object upon which my eyes chanced to rest. So strange a room I had never seen; yet seemed it stranger still, to find such a room in a lone farmhouse amid those wild and solitary moors! Over and over again, I looked from my host to his surroundings, and from his surroundings back to my host, asking myself who and what he could be? His head was singularly fine; but it was more the head of a poet than of a philosopher. Broad in the temples, prominent over the eyes, and clothed with a rough profusion of perfectly white hair, it had all the ideality and much of the ruggedness that characterises the head of Louis von Beethoven. There were the same deep lines about the mouth, and the same stern furrows in the brow. There was the same concentration of expression. While I was yet observing him, the door opened, and Jacob brought in the supper. His master then closed his book, rose, and with more courtesy of manner than he had yet shown, invited me to the table.

A dish of ham and eggs, a loaf of brown bread, and a bottle of admirable sherry, were placed before me.

“I have but the homeliest farmhouse fare to offer you, sir,” said my entertainer. “Your appetite, I trust, will make up for the deficiencies of our larder.”

I had already fallen upon the viands, and now protested, with the enthusiasm of a starving sportsman, that I had never eaten anything so delicious.

He bowed stiffly, and sat down to his own supper, which consisted, primitively, of a jug of milk and a basin of porridge. We ate in silence, and, when we had done, Jacob removed the tray. I then drew my chair back to the fireside. My host, somewhat to my surprise, did the same, and turning abruptly towards me, said:

“Sir, I have lived here in strict retirement for three-and-twenty years. During that time, I have not seen as many strange faces, and I have not read a single newspaper. You are the first stranger who has crossed my threshold for more than four years. Will you favour me with a few words of information respecting that outer world from which I have parted company so long?”

“Pray interrogate me,” I replied. “I am heartily at your service.”

He bent his head in acknowledgment; leaned forward, with his elbows resting on his knees and his chin supported in the palms of his hands; stared fixedly into the fire; and proceeded to question me.

His inquiries related chiefly to scientific matters, with the later progress of which, as applied to the practical purposes of life, he was almost wholly unacquainted. No student of science myself, I replied as well as my slight information permitted; but the task was far from easy, and I was much relieved when, passing from interrogation to discussion, he began pouring forth his own conclusions upon the facts which I had been attempting to place before him. He talked, and I listened spellbound. He talked till I believe he almost forgot my presence, and only thought aloud. I had never heard anything like it then; I have never heard anything like it since. Familiar with all systems of all philosophies, subtle in analysis, bold in generalisation, he poured forth his thoughts in an uninterrupted stream, and, still leaning forward in the same moody attitude with his eyes fixed upon the fire, wandered from topic to topic, from speculation to speculation, like an inspired dreamer. From practical science to mental philosophy; from electricity in the wire to electricity in the nerve; from Watts to Mesmer, from Mesmer to Reichenbach, from Reichenbach to Swedenborg, Spinoza, Condillac, Descartes, Berkeley, Aristotle, Plato, and the Magi and mystics of the East, were transitions which, however bewildering in their variety and scope, seemed easy and harmonious upon his lips as sequences in music. By-and-by—I forget now by what link of conjecture or illustration—he passed on to that field which lies beyond the boundary line of even conjectural philosophy, and reaches no man knows whither. He spoke of the soul and its aspirations; of the spirit and its powers; of second sight; of prophecy; of those phenomena which, under the names of ghosts, spectres, and supernatural appearances, have been denied by the sceptics and attested by the credulous, of all ages.

“The world,” he said, “grows hourly more and more sceptical of all that lies beyond its own narrow radius; and our men of science foster the fatal tendency. They condemn as fable all that resists experiment. They reject as false all that cannot be brought to the test of the laboratory or the dissecting-room. Against what superstition have they waged so long and obstinate a war, as against the belief in apparitions? And yet what superstition has maintained its hold upon the minds of men so long and so firmly? Show me any fact in physics, in history, in archæology, which is supported by testimony so wide and so various. Attested by all races of men, in all ages, and in all climates, by the soberest sages of antiquity, by the rudest savage of to-day, by the Christian, the Pagan, the Pantheist, the Materialist, this phenomenon is treated as a nursery tale by the philosophers of our century. Circumstantial evidence weighs with them as a feather in the balance. The comparison of causes with effects, however valuable in physical science, is put aside as worthless and unreliable. The evidence of competent witnesses, however conclusive in a court of justice, counts for nothing. He who pauses before he pronounces, is condemned as a trifler. He who believes, is a dreamer or a fool.”

He spoke with bitterness, and, having said thus, relapsed for some minutes into silence. Presently he raised his head from his hands, and added, with an altered voice and manner, “I, sir, paused, investigated, believed, and was not ashamed to state my convictions to the world. I, too, was branded as a visionary, held up to ridicule by my contemporaries, and hooted from that field of science in which I had laboured with honour during all the best years of my life. These things happened just three-and-twenty years ago. Since then, I have lived as you see me living now, and the world has forgotten me, as I have forgotten the world. You have my history.”

“It is a very sad one,” I murmured, scarcely knowing what to answer.

“It is a very common one,” he replied. “I have only suffered for the truth, as many a better and wiser man has suffered before me.”

He rose, as if desirous of ending the conversation, and went over to the window.

“It has ceased snowing,” he observed, as he dropped the curtain, and came back to the fireside.

“Ceased!” I exclaimed, starting eagerly to my feet. “Oh, if it were only possible—but no! it is hopeless. Even if I could find my way across the moor, I could not walk twenty miles to-night.”

“Walk twenty miles to-night!” repeated my host. “What are you thinking of?”

“Of my wife,” I replied, impatiently. “Of my young wife, who does not know that I have lost my way, and who is at this moment breaking her heart with suspense and terror.”

“Where is she?”

“At Dwolding, twenty miles away.”

“At Dwolding,” he echoed, thoughtfully. “Yes, the distance, it is true, is twenty miles; but—are you so very anxious to save the next six or eight hours?”

“So very, very anxious, that I would give ten guineas at this moment for a guide and a horse.”

“Your wish can be gratified at a less costly rate,” said he, smiling. “The night mail from the north, which changes horses at Dwolding, passes within five miles of this spot, and will be due at a certain cross-road in about an hour and a quarter. If Jacob were to go with you across the moor, and put you into the old coach-road, you could find your way, I suppose, to where it joins the new one?”

“Easily—gladly.”

He smiled again, rang the bell, gave the old servant his directions, and, taking a bottle of whisky and a wineglass from the cupboard in which he kept his chemicals, said:

“The snow lies deep, and it will be difficult walking to-night on the moor. A glass of usquebaugh before you start?”

I would have declined the spirit, but he pressed it on me, and I drank it. It went down my throat like liquid flame, and almost took my breath away.

“It is strong,” he said; “but it will help to keep out the cold. And now you have no moments to spare. Good night!”

I thanked him for his hospitality, and would have shaken hands, but that he had turned away before I could finish my sentence. In another minute I had traversed the hall, Jacob had locked the outer door behind me, and we were out on the wide white moor.

Although the wind had fallen, it was still bitterly cold. Not a star glimmered in the black vault overhead. Not a sound, save the rapid crunching of the snow beneath our feet, disturbed the heavy stillness of the night. Jacob, not too well pleased with his mission, shambled on before in sullen silence, his lantern in his hand, and his shadow at his feet. I followed, with my gun over my shoulder, as little inclined for conversation as himself. My thoughts were full of my late host. His voice yet rang in my ears. His eloquence yet held my imagination captive. I remember to this day, with surprise, how my over-excited brain retained whole sentences and parts of sentences, troops of brilliant images, and fragments of splendid reasoning, in the very words in which he had uttered them. Musing thus over what I had heard, and striving to recall a lost link here and there, I strode on at the heels of my guide, absorbed and unobservant. Presently—at the end, as it seemed to me, of only a few minutes—he came to a sudden halt, and said:

“Yon’s your road. Keep the stone fence to your right hand, and you can’t fail of the way.”

“This, then, is the old coach-road?”

“Ay, ’tis the old coach-road.”

“And how far do I go, before I reach the cross-roads?”

“Nigh upon three mile.”

I pulled out my purse, and he became more communicative.

“The road’s a fair road enough,” said he, “for foot passengers; but ’twas over steep and narrow for the northern traffic. You’ll mind where the parapet’s broken away, close again the sign-post. It’s never been mended since the accident.”

“What accident?”

“Eh, the night mail pitched right over into the valley below—a gude fifty feet an’ more—just at the worst bit o’ road in the whole county.”

“Horrible! Were many lives lost?”

“All. Four were found dead, and t’other two died next morning.”

“How long is it since this happened?”

“Just nine year.”

“Near the sign-post, you say? I will bear it in mind. Good night.”

“Gude night, sir, and thankee.” Jacob pocketed his half-crown, made a faint pretence of touching his hat, and trudged back by the way he had come.

I watched the light of his lantern till it quite disappeared, and then turned to pursue my way alone. This was no longer matter of the slightest difficulty, for, despite the dead darkness overhead, the line of stone fence showed distinctly enough against the pale gleam of the snow. How silent it seemed now, with only my footsteps to listen to; how silent and how solitary! A strange disagreeable sense of loneliness stole over me. I walked faster. I hummed a fragment of a tune. I cast up enormous sums in my head, and accumulated them at compound interest. I did my best, in short, to forget the startling speculations to which I had but just been listening, and, to some extent, I succeeded.

Meanwhile the night air seemed to become colder and colder, and though I walked fast I found it impossible to keep myself warm. My feet were like ice. I lost sensation in my hands, and grasped my gun mechanically. I even breathed with difficulty, as though, instead of traversing a quiet north country highway, I were scaling the uppermost heights of some gigantic Alp. This last symptom became presently so distressing, that I was forced to stop for a few minutes, and lean against the stone fence. As I did so, I chanced to look back up the road, and there, to my infinite relief, I saw a distant point of light, like the gleam of an approaching lantern. I at first concluded that Jacob had retraced his steps and followed me; but even as the conjecture presented itself, a second light flashed into sight—a light evidently parallel with the first, and approaching at the same rate of motion. It needed no second thought to show me that these must be the carriage-lamps of some private vehicle, though it seemed strange that any private vehicle should take a road professedly disused and dangerous.

There could be no doubt, however, of the fact, for the lamps grew larger and brighter every moment, and I even fancied I could already see the dark outline of the carriage between them. It was coming up very fast, and quite noiselessly, the snow being nearly a foot deep under the wheels.

And now the body of the vehicle became distinctly visible behind the lamps. It looked strangely lofty. A sudden suspicion flashed upon me. Was it possible that I had passed the cross-roads in the dark without observing the sign-post, and could this be the very coach which I had come to meet?

No need to ask myself that question a second time, for here it came round the bend of the road, guard and driver, one outside passenger, and four steaming greys, all wrapped in a soft haze of light, through which the lamps blazed out, like a pair of fiery meteors.

I jumped forward, waved my hat, and shouted. The mail came down at full speed, and passed me. For a moment I feared that I had not been seen or heard, but it was only for a moment. The coachman pulled up; the guard, muffled to the eyes in capes and comforters, and apparently sound asleep in the rumble, neither answered my hail nor made the slightest effort to dismount; the outside passenger did not even turn his head. I opened the door for myself, and looked in. There were but three travellers inside, so I stepped in, shut the door, slipped into the vacant corner, and congratulated myself on my good fortune.

The atmosphere of the coach seemed, if possible, colder than that of the outer air, and was pervaded by a singularly damp and disagreeable smell. I looked round at my fellow-passengers. They were all three, men, and all silent. They did not seem to be asleep, but each leaned back in his corner of the vehicle, as if absorbed in his own reflections. I attempted to open a conversation.

“How intensely cold it is to-night,” I said, addressing my opposite neighbour.

He lifted his head, looked at me, but made no reply.

“The winter,” I added, “seems to have begun in earnest.”

Although the corner in which he sat was so dim that I could distinguish none of his features very clearly, I saw that his eyes were still turned full upon me. And yet he answered never a word.

At any other time I should have felt, and perhaps expressed, some annoyance, but at the moment I felt too ill to do either. The icy coldness of the night air had struck a chill to my very marrow, and the strange smell inside the coach was affecting me with an intolerable nausea. I shivered from head to foot, and, turning to my left-hand neighbour, asked if he had any objection to an open window?

He neither spoke nor stirred.

I repeated the question somewhat more loudly, but with the same result. Then I lost patience, and let the sash down. As I did so, the leather strap broke in my hand, and I observed that the glass was covered with a thick coat of mildew, the accumulation, apparently, of years. My attention being thus drawn to the condition of the coach, I examined it more narrowly, and saw by the uncertain light of the outer lamps that it was in the last stage of dilapidation. Every part of it was not only out of repair, but in a condition of decay. The sashes splintered at a touch. The leather fittings were crusted over with mould, and literally rotting from the woodwork. The floor was almost breaking away beneath my feet. The whole machine, in short, was foul with damp, and had evidently been dragged from some outhouse in which it had been mouldering away for years, to do another day or two of duty on the road.

I turned to the third passenger, whom I had not yet addressed, and hazarded one more remark.

“This coach,” I said, “is in a deplorable condition. The regular mail, I suppose, is under repair?”

He moved his head slowly, and looked me in the face, without speaking a word. I shall never forget that look while I live. I turned cold at heart under it. I turn cold at heart even now when I recall it. His eyes glowed with a fiery unnatural lustre. His face was livid as the face of a corpse. His bloodless lips were drawn back as if in the agony of death, and showed the gleaming teeth between.

The words that I was about to utter died upon my lips, and a strange horror—a dreadful horror—came upon me. My sight had by this time become used to the gloom of the coach, and I could see with tolerable distinctness. I turned to my opposite neighbour. He, too, was looking at me, with the same startling pallor in his face, and the same stony glitter in his eyes. I passed my hand across my brow. I turned to the passenger on the seat beside my own, and saw—oh Heaven! how shall I describe what I saw? I saw that he was no living man—that none of them were living men, like myself! A pale phosphorescent light—the light of putrefaction—played upon their awful faces; upon their hair, dank with the dews of the grave; upon their clothes, earth-stained and dropping to pieces; upon their hands, which were as the hands of corpses long buried. Only their eyes, their terrible eyes, were living; and those eyes were all turned menacingly upon me!

A shriek of terror, a wild unintelligible cry for help and mercy; burst from my lips as I flung myself against the door, and strove in vain to open it.

In that single instant, brief and vivid as a landscape beheld in the flash of summer lightning, I saw the moon shining down through a rift of stormy cloud—the ghastly sign-post rearing its warning finger by the wayside—the broken parapet—the plunging horses—the black gulf below. Then, the coach reeled like a ship at sea. Then, came a mighty crash—a sense of crushing pain—and then, darkness.

It seemed as if years had gone by when I awoke one morning from a deep sleep, and found my wife watching by my bedside I will pass over the scene that ensued, and give you, in half a dozen words, the tale she told me with tears of thanksgiving. I had fallen over a precipice, close against the junction of the old coach-road and the new, and had only been saved from certain death by lighting upon a deep snowdrift that had accumulated at the foot of the rock beneath. In this snowdrift I was discovered at daybreak, by a couple of shepherds, who carried me to the nearest shelter, and brought a surgeon to my aid. The surgeon found me in a state of raving delirium, with a broken arm and a compound fracture of the skull. The letters in my pocket-book showed my name and address; my wife was summoned to nurse me; and, thanks to youth and a fine constitution, I came out of danger at last. The place of my fall, I need scarcely say, was precisely that at which a frightful accident had happened to the north mail nine years before.

I never told my wife the fearful events which I have just related to you. I told the surgeon who attended me; but he treated the whole adventure as a mere dream born of the fever in my brain. We discussed the question over and over again, until we found that we could discuss it with temper no longer, and then we dropped it. Others may form what conclusions they please—I know that twenty years ago I was the fourth inside passenger in that Phantom Coach.

Classic Ghost Stories Podcast

I've just started a new podcast, featuring the kind of material you read here on the blog, but I read it out!

I'm doing this because of two reasons, the first is I personally love hearing people read me stories, and the second is that audiobooks and podcasts are increasingly the way people will consume fiction in the future.

So here's the link:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/episodes/1707544-episode-1-the-yellow-wallpaper