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CHAPTER XI
"REST, REST, PERTURBÉD SPIRIT!"

I think it was because such lighter incidents as those that I have described in the two preceding chapters were freely introduced among more weighty happenings, and thus gave a certain measure of relief from them, that we managed to fill out our term in the House on the Hill. Absurd and impish as the general run of these performances was, there was still an element of what I may almost call intimacy in them – a sort of appeal, as it were, to look upon the whole thing as a joke; which, while they caused us amazement, brought us no real alarm. Much as has been attributed to the influence of fear, I believe curiosity to be the stronger passion; and few days passed without a fillip being given to our interest by some new absurdity, while events of graver suggestion were few and far between.

I need not say that the affair which had been most sinister and disquieting was the coming to my wife of the evident apparition of Deeming. This visitation had been so awful and unearthly that by tacit agreement we had not spoken of it since the afternoon of its occurrence: – yet I had never been able to get it out of my mind, and every day I spent in town was darkened by forebodings of what might happen at home before my return. Each night as I came in sight of the house I looked anxiously for the figure of my wife standing on the veranda to welcome me, and each night I drew a breath of relief as I saw in her serene and smiling face that my apprehensions had been vain; and so I came by degrees to dismiss my fears in the conviction that that uneasy spirit had been laid at last.

But this comforting assurance suddenly failed me, when, one evening about two weeks after the ghost's first coming, I read in my wife's eyes that it had appeared again. Yet, greatly to my relief, I saw no fear in them, but, rather, an expression of pity. Her manner was quiet and composed, but I was sure she had been weeping.

"Yes," she said, in reply to my anxious inquiries; "Deeming has been here, and I have been crying. Oh, that poor tortured, despairing soul! – he is in Hell, and one infinitely worse than that we were taught to believe in; a Hell where conscience never sleeps, and where he sees what he might have been – and now never can be! He frightened me terribly at first, but I know he tried not to do so, and now I am glad he came, for I believe I have helped him, although I cannot understand how. I feel weak and faint, for I have been under a great strain, but I shall be better now that you have come home – and I know, too, that I shall never see him again. Come into my room, and I will tell you all about it: " – and when I had done so, and had tried, with some success, to quiet the agitation that, in spite of her words, still possessed her, she told me the amazing story of her experience.

"It was about eleven o'clock this forenoon," she began, "and I was alone in the house – in the kitchen. I had been airing the house, and all the doors and windows were open, although the screens were in place. All at once I heard the back gate creak as it always does when it opens, and 'Schneider' and 'Tokio'" (such were the names of our two dogs) "who were loose in the yard, barking at somebody. I supposed it was the butcher or the grocery man and looked out the back door – and just then the dogs came tearing by with their tails between their legs, and disappeared around the corner of the house. The next instant I saw a man standing just inside the gate. He was not looking at me, but his eyes seemed to be following the flight of the dogs; then they turned to meet mine, and I saw that it was Deeming. I shut the back door instantly and locked it – then ran to the front door and fastened that; I wanted to close and bolt the windows, too, but did not dare do so, for I was afraid I might look out of any one of them and see him. I prayed to God that he might go away, but he did not. I stood in the hall and saw him move by outside the window of your room. By-and-by he passed the dining-room window on the other side of me as I stood there, having gone completely around the house. But he did not look in.

"I did not see anything more of him for some time, and I began to think that he had given up trying to communicate with me, and had gone away again. I finally went into the bedroom and peeped out into the veranda. He was there, standing near and facing the door! He did not seem to notice me, and I watched him for some time. He was dressed just as he had been before, and looked the same; but I could see him much more clearly than the first time, and if I had not known who it was, I should have thought it was a living man.

"I don't know how it was, but as I stood watching him I found that I wasn't afraid of him at all. He looked so sad and pitiful, and stood there so patiently, that I began to feel as I might toward some poor beggar; he seemed just like one, waiting for something to eat. Then I thought how he had pleaded the other day for assistance, and how I had turned him away – and although it was like death to face him again, I went into the hall and opened the door.

"The screen door was closed and locked, and we looked at each other through it. I could see every detail of the figure's face and dress as it stood there in the bright sunlight: – it was within three feet of me, and it was Deeming's without a shadow of a doubt.

"I don't know how long I stood there. I seemed to be in another world, and in a strange atmosphere which he may have brought with him. I had to make a strong effort, but finally succeeded in seeing and thinking clearly, and as he only looked appealingly at me and seemed not to be able to say anything, I was the first to speak.

"'I know who you are, this time,' I said. 'I told you never to come here again. Why have you done so?'

"'Madame,' he replied, 'I have come for help.'

"'I told you the other day I could do nothing for you,' I said.

"'But you can, if you will,' he answered, 'and there is nobody else I can reach. Don't be afraid of me – I won't hurt you. I need some one to show me Christian charity, and I thought you were kind and would help me.'"

"'Christian charity!'" I exclaimed, interrupting the recital for the first time: "was that what he said?"

"Those were his exact words," said my wife; "and it seemed almost blasphemy for such a creature to use them."

"They seem to me," I commented, "more like one of those stock phrases of which nearly every man has some, of one sort or another. Do you remember, in the letter Deeming wrote to you from the jail when you could not induce Miss Rounsfell to come to see him, how he said he was sorry you did not find her 'as Christianlike as yourself?' It may be a small point, but this appeal to your 'Christian charity' seems to confirm your belief that it was the apparition of Deeming that made it to you to-day. But what happened then?"

"Well," said she, taking up the thread of her story, "while he was saying this he kept his eyes on mine – great, pleading eyes like those of a dog: – they made me think he was trying to say things for which he could not find words, and – I don't know why – I began to feel sorry for him.

"'I don't understand at all what you mean,' I said. 'Your awful crimes horrify me, and I can hardly bear to look at you. Why should you distress me as you do?'

"'I don't want to distress you,' he replied, 'but I must get out of this horrible place!'

"'What do you mean by "this horrible place"? I cannot understand you.'

"'I can't make you understand,' he said. 'They won't let me.' I don't know what he meant by 'they,' but I thought it was some beings that controlled him, though I could see nothing. Then he went on in a long, confused talk which I could only partly follow.

"The substance of what he said was this, as nearly as I could gather it. His body was buried in quicklime in a criminal's unmarked grave; I think he said under the wall of the jail, but of this I am not sure – and as long as a trace of it remained he was tied down to the scenes of his crime and punishment. If he could only find some one who would pity him, and show it by 'an act of Christian charity' – he used the expression again – his term of suffering here would be shortened, and he could 'go on;' that was the way he put it, although he did not seem to know what it meant. His talk was vague and rambling, and seemed to me very incoherent; but his distress was plain enough, and when he stopped speaking (which was not for some time, for he kept going back and repeating as if he were trying to make his meaning clearer) I had lost all feeling except that here was a creature in great trouble, and that I ought to help him if I could.

"When he had finished I asked him how I could show him the 'Christian charity' he had spoken about.

"'By giving me something,' he replied, 'and being sorry for me when you give it.'

"'I am sorry for you,' I said. 'Isn't that enough?'

"'No,' he answered, 'that isn't enough. You might have done it if you had bought the soap from me the other day.'

"'So it is money you want?' I asked.

"'Yes,' he said, 'money will do, or anything else that you value.'

"'Will you stay where you are until I can get some?' I asked: – and he said, yes, he would stay where he was.

"So I went into my room and took some money from my purse, and went back and showed it to him; there was a half-crown, a shilling and some coppers – there they are, on the dressing table beside you."

"So you did not give them to him, after all?" I inquired, taking up the coins and examining them.

"Oh, yes, I did," replied my wife; "and that is the strangest part of the whole thing.

"As I said, I showed him the money and asked him if that would do; and he said it would.

"Then I said: 'I am not going to open this door. How can I give these coins to you?'

"'You don't need to open it,' he answered. 'There is a hat rack there behind you, with a marble shelf in it – put them on that shelf.'

"I stepped back to the hat rack and put the money on the shelf, watching him all the time. I glanced at the coins an instant as I laid them down, and when I looked at the door again there was nobody there. I instantly turned to the hat rack again, but the shelf was bare – the coins had disappeared, too!

"I rushed to the door to unlock it and run into the street, for I thought Deeming had got into the house: – but just as I had my hand on the key I heard his voice in front of me.

"'Don't be afraid,' the voice said. 'I haven't moved.'

"'But how did you get the money?' I asked.

"'You wouldn't understand if I should tell you,' replied the voice.

"'But I can't see you!' I exclaimed.

"'No,' said the voice, 'and you never will again. I have gone on.'

"'But you are not going away with my money, are you?' I asked. 'Do you need it now?'

"'No,' the voice replied, 'I do not need it. You gave it to me because you pitied me – I have no more use for it.'

"'Can you give it back to me?' I asked.

"'I have given it back,' said the voice. 'Look on the hat rack.'

"I heard something jingle behind me, and as I turned around I saw the coins all lying on the shelf again."

The conclusion of this prodigious history found me in a state very nearly approaching stupefaction. It was not so much the facts themselves which it embodied as the suggestions they inspired that appalled me, and the glimpse they seemed to afford of mysteries the human race has for ages shrinkingly guessed at, chilled me to the marrow of my bones. "Can such things be?" was the question I asked myself again and again as I struggled to regain my composure: – and although this experience seemed a natural and fitting sequence in the drama that had been enacted in that house under my own eyes, I am free to say I could not on the instant credit it.

My wife detected my hesitation at once, and said:

"I see you cannot believe what I have told you, and I do not wonder at it: – but it is true, for all that."

"I know you think so," I replied; "and in view of the very many other strange events you have taken part in – and I with you in a number of them – I ought to have no doubts. But this is the most staggering thing I ever heard of. Are you sure you were not dreaming?"

"Well," she said, with a laugh, "I am not in the habit of dreaming at eleven o'clock on a bright, sunny morning, and when I have the care of the house on my hands. And then, the dogs: – do you think they were dreaming, too?"

"Ah, yes!" I exclaimed; "what about the dogs?"

"I told you," she replied, "how they ran to the gate, barking, and then suddenly turned tail and rushed away in a panic as soon as they saw what was there. When Deeming had gone, I went out to look after them, but for a long time I could not find them. I called and I coaxed, but to no purpose. Finally I discovered them out in the farthest corner of the paddock, under the thick bushes, crowded together in a heap, and trembling as though they had been whipped. I had to crawl in and drag them out, but I couldn't induce them to come near the house; at last I had to carry them in, and all the afternoon they have stuck close to me as though they felt the need of protection. It is only half an hour ago that I got them into their kennels and chained them up. You had better go out and see them."

I did so, and found one kennel empty, and both dogs lying close together (as the length of their chains allowed them to do) in the straw of the other. I had never seen them do this before, since each was very jealous of intrusion by the other upon his quarters, and I was impressed by the circumstance. The poor brutes still showed unmistakable evidences of terror, whimpered and whined and licked my hand as I petted them, and set up a concerted and agonized howl of protest when I left them. There was no doubt whatever that they had been horribly frightened – if not by the ghost of Deeming, by what? – it was certainly no merely physical agitation that their actions showed.

CHAPTER XII
THE DEMONS OF THE DARK

True to his promise, Deeming did not reappear, nor was there any subsequent manifestation that seemed referable to him. To what new plane he had "gone on," and whether to one higher or lower, we could only guess; the door that had closed upon his exit had evidently shut in forever (as had been our experience in certain other like cases) a mystery to which, for a moment, we had almost felt we were about to hold the key. Of the problem of the future life we had a hint of the terms of the solution, but the answer vanished before we could set it down below the ordered figures of the sum. Such, I believe, has been, is, and will be the constant fortune of all who venture far into the penetralia of the unseen. Now and then there seems to be an illumination – but it is not the radiance of discovered truth: – it is the lightning flash that warns away the profane intruder, and if defied it blasts him in body or in mind.

It was because of this conviction that my wife and I, although having experience during many years of incomprehensible occurrences whose narration, should I set it down, would fill many books like this, steadfastly refrained from allowing ourselves to assume a mental attitude that might, so to speak, encourage them. Far from finding the influences (whatever they were – and on this point we were careful to make no inquiry, and never formulated any theory) reluctant to invitation to display themselves, we were at times compelled to offer strenuous opposition to their approach: – even a passive receptivity to strange phenomena was not free from peril, and our previous knowledge of the unbalancing of more than one inquiring mind that had pursued the subject of the occult with too great a temerity had convinced us that "that way danger lies" – and a very grave danger, too.

To that danger we ourselves, as I believe, finally came to be exposed in our life in the House on the Hill: – not because we were lured to seek out the origin and nature of the forces about us, and thus gave ourselves up to their influence, but because the more or less constant exercise of that influence could not fail to have that effect, in spite of ourselves: – and it is to show how, as it seemed, and why, this effect – at first unsuspected – grew toward its sinister culmination, that I undertake the writing of this final chapter.

Meantime, I may say that the incidents attending the two spectral appearances that I have recorded, gave us occasion for much curious speculation, in which there was a certain relief in indulging ourselves. The garments from the wardrobe of the hangman; was the murderer doomed to go through all Eternity in this hideous attire? The offered sale of soap; is the occupation of "drummer" or "bagman" practiced beyond the Styx, and for what ghostly manufacturers are orders solicited? Was the soap a sample? Was it for the toilette or the laundry? What was its price per cake, and was there any discount by the box? Then the shade's appeal for "Christian charity," and the acceptance of it in the tangible form of coin of the realm! The money was returned again, but had it meanwhile been entered in some misty ledger to the credit of its temporary bearer? If deposits are made, and balance-sheets issued in the Dark World, then might Deeming's account seem to be heavily overdrawn. Dealing in phantom money, and liquidating of shadowy notes-of-hand! – do we carry with us into the Beyond not only our characters and personalities (as some believe) but also our occupations and ways of doing business? If Deeming's discarnated action was thus to be explained, he must have been in Hell, indeed!

Reflections such as these may strike the reader as flippant, but they were among the natural results of the circumstances. There was something so personal and intimate in these mid-day visits of the apparition, it was itself so seemingly tangible and even human, and in its expressions of thought and manifestations of emotion seemed to have experienced so slight an essential change from the conditions with which the living man had been acquainted, that there was little to excite horror in the event, after all. If the phantom had imparted to us no information, it had at least given us a hint that there was progress in the realms of the hereafter, and had awakened a vague belief that at the end of all there might be pardon. This suggestion was tenuous and elusive; but it was afforded, nevertheless, and I still cling to the hope that it inspired.

In writing this strange chronicle I have not attempted to set down all our experiences in that house of mystery, but only such as have seemed to me unusual, or representative of the manifestations as a whole. There were certain other phenomena so vague and evasive that I am unable to find words whereby to describe their nature or to convey the impression they caused: – all that I can say of them is that they seemed to invite us to an inquiry into some secret which the house contained, and to beckon to the success of such an investigation. We often discussed this apparent suggestion, but never acted upon it: – chiefly because, as I think, we were not at all sure it was not of subjective, rather than objective, origin – the natural result of the mental ferment which such a protracted series of weird happenings might be expected to cause. Moreover, as everything that had so far occurred had been without any conscious encouragement on our part, we felt some fear (as I have intimated above) of what might befall us if we endeavored to place ourselves completely en rapport with the agencies that seemed to be at work about us. Therefore we maintained as well as we could our isolated and non-conductive position, and refrained from all encouragement to the suggestions that were more and more forcibly borne in upon us that we should seek an understanding of the meaning of the things that had so much disturbed us.

Yet I cannot refrain from stating my conviction that the phenomena which I have endeavored to describe in these pages had their origin, not in any disturbed or morbid condition of the mind in any of the three persons who were affected by them, but in some undiscovered cause local and peculiar to the place of their occurrence. If this were not the case, it seems singular that manifestations of a like nature did not present themselves at other times and in other places. Any such persistent and startling incidents as those that were displayed in the House on the Hill were, happily, foreign elsewhere both to my wife's experience and to my own – such other influences as have seemed to come about us having apparently been unaffected by conditions of period and locality, and being almost always of a mild and gentle nature.

Whether our tacit refusal to seek a solution of the mystery that had so long brooded over us had anything to do with the even more serious and startling events that occurred during the final period of our residence, I cannot tell. I have often thought so: – at all events this record would be incomplete without setting them down.

It is not to be denied that the adventures in which we had participated for nearly a year, came finally to have a serious effect upon us, both physically and mentally. Our curiosity and interest had long ago become sated, and of late we had felt the slow but steady growth of something like apprehension: – an apprehension even more acute than that which might be inspired by any definite occasion for fear, since it looked forward to uncertainties for which there seemed to be no definition. But the days passed slowly by until only two weeks remained before the expiration of our lease, and, since the incident of the brooch which I have described, nothing seriously untoward had occurred.

Yet we had lately been conscious that the character of the influence that had so long possessed our habitation seemed to be undergoing a change. I cannot describe this change except to say that it took the form of an ominous quiescence. The elfish entities whose cantrips had served more to amuse and mystify than to annoy us, seemed suddenly to have abandoned the premises as if retiring before some superior approach, and the wraiths of the women and the child were no more seen or heard about the rooms or in the hall: – instead of these, we vaguely recognized the presence of a mighty force, which made itself manifest neither to the eye nor the ear, but was evident through some latent or inner sense whose function was to apprehend it. I cannot explain how the impression was conveyed, but we somehow knew that this presence was malignant and foreboded harm; and a disturbing uneasiness grew upon us rather than diminished as time elapsed, and everything remained upon the surface serene and calm.

While the familiar occurrences to which we had been accustomed never lost their sense of strangeness, the present cessation of them seemed more uncanny still; we had an uneasy and growing sense of something serious being about to happen, and often expressed to each other our common feeling of alarm. The circumstance that disquieted us most was that, whereas nearly all the events in which we had shared hitherto had taken place by day, this new obsession was felt chiefly at night: – it seemed to enwrap the house in an equal degree with the gathering darkness, and each evening at sundown we lighted every gas-jet, and sat or moved about together under the influence of an urgent craving for companionship. We were like spectators sitting in a theatre between two acts of a compelling performance; behind the lowered curtain a situation was preparing whose nature we could not guess; we apprehended rather than perceived that the stage was being reset, the scenery shifted, a new development provided for – and we feared beyond measure to see the curtain lift again, as we felt assured it would.

The climax came at last, and in a sudden and awful manner. Our nameless apprehension had caused us, of late, to spend as many evenings as possible abroad – visiting friends and acquaintances, or attending entertainments in the city. Returning late one night from the theatre, our friend and I went into the dining-room, while my wife retired to her chamber to prepare for bed. We had been chatting a few moments when we heard a piercing shriek from my wife's room; and rushing in we were horrified to see her standing close against the wall, her face white and drawn with terror, apparently striving to free herself from some being that held her firmly in its clutches. Her aspect was so unearthly that we stood for a moment literally frozen on the threshold: – then she seemed to be lifted up bodily and thrown across the bed, where she lay with eyes protruding, and hands frantically tearing at her throat as if trying to free herself from some powerful grip that was choking her. We rushed to her and raised her to a sitting position, but she was torn from us again and again, and from the gasping and throttled sounds that came from her throat we felt that she was dying. We cried out in incoherent frenzy to her unseen tormentors to be gone, and struck wildly at the air as if there were about her palpable objects of our blows. This dreadful struggle lasted for several minutes; at times we apparently prevailed, again we were overwhelmed: – finally the influence seemed to pass, and I laid her back upon the pillows, still panting and trembling but no longer suffocating, as she whispered: "Thank God, they have gone!"

This experience had been so frightful, and so foreign to all others that had befallen us, that I found myself reluctant to refer it to unnatural agencies, and tried to explain it as a fit of some kind by which my wife had been attacked – although I knew that she had never had such a seizure in all her life, and was in perfect physical and mental health. Moreover, when she soon complained of her throat hurting her, I looked more closely, and with amazement saw upon both sides of her neck the marks that no one could have mistaken as other than those left by the fingers of a pair of powerful hands!

At this sight the little courage that remained to me abandoned me entirely, and I could see that our friend was equally unmanned. "We must leave this house!" we exclaimed in the same breath: – and as we spoke my wife cried out: "Oh! they are here again!" and at once the ghastly combat was renewed.

This time our friend and I made no effort to fight against the demons – if such they were; we seized the half-conscious woman in our arms, and partly carried, partly dragged her out of the house. The Possession seemed to leave her at the door, and the fresh air soon revived her. But there was no going back for any of us that night. It was late summer, and the air was warm: – so, bareheaded, and with my wife guarded between her two male protectors, we walked the deserted streets until the rising of the sun gave us courage to return home.

I shall not forget those hours of midnight and early morning: – the serene and amethyst-colored Australian sky strewn with star-dust and set with twinkling constellations, and the dark earth about us – across which, as from time to time we approached the house from which we had been expelled, the light from its windows and from its open door gleamed balefully. All was silent within, but we feared the lurking presence and dared not enter, and after one or two returns remained only within view of it until daybreak was well advanced. Our conversation throughout the vigil need not be recorded, but the reader may guess its import: – the awful experience through which we had passed had brought powerfully to our minds the thought of Deeming in the feature of the throttling hands, since in all his murders there was evidence upon the throats of his victims that strangulation had preceded the operation of the knife. But my wife opposed this grisly suggestion: – it was not the shade of the murderer, she affirmed, that had attacked her, although she could give no description of her assailants – they were dark, formless shapes – resembling neither man nor beast; things more felt than seen, even to her.

Yet in spite of this assurance, when I re-entered the house and saw in its usual place above my writing table the plaster mould which I had carried from the murderer's cell in the Melbourne jail, I recalled with a new appreciation of their appositeness the words of the worthy governor.

Whatever the influence was that had appalled us, we had not sufficient courage to oppose it, and so hastened our preparations for departure that we finally quitted the house a week before our lease expired; and within a month saw the shores of Australia fade behind us as our steamer turned its prow toward Aden, Suez, and Marseilles. There was one recurrence of the phenomenon I have just described during the last few nights of our possession, but we evaded it by taking to the street again, and again passing the night therein.

It was on a sunny morning in early March – the month answering in the inverted seasons of the Antipodes to September of northern latitudes – that we turned the key that locked us out for the last time from that house of shadows. As we reached the street we turned with one accord to look back upon it: – how inviting it appeared in the brilliant sunshine, amid its attractive surroundings of grassy lawn set with shrubs in flower, its smiling orchard and garden! We looked into one another's faces, and each saw therein the reflection of his own thoughts: – there was the relief such as they feel who awake from an oppressive dream; yet the place had been our home!

THE END