Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  ‘Must have been awful,’ said Jack, taking another cake. ‘Do tell us about the feeling. My ghost will wait.’

  ‘It makes me creep to think of it even now,’ she said. ‘I woke up, all at once, with that dreadful feeling as if something were going to happen, you know! I was wide awake, and hearing every little sound for miles around, it seemed to me. There are so many strange little noises in the country for all it is so still. Millions of crickets and things outside, and all kinds of rustles in the trees! There wasn’t much wind, and the moonlight came through in my three great windows in three white squares on the black old floor, and those fingery wistaria leaves we were talking of last night just seemed to crawl all over them. And — O, girls, you know that dreadful well in the cellar?’

  A most gratifying impression was made by this, and Jenny proceeded cheerfully:

  ‘Well, while it was so horridly still, and I lay there trying not to wake George, I heard as plainly as if it were right in the room, that old chain down there rattle and creak over the stones!’

  ‘Bravo!’ cried Jack. ‘That’s fine! I’ll put it in the Sunday edition!’

  ‘Be still!’ said Kate. ‘What was it, Jenny? Did you really see anything?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, I’m sorry to say. But just then I didn’t want to. I woke George, and made such a fuss that he gave me bromide, and said he’d go and look, and that’s the last I thought of it till Jack reminded me, — the bromide worked so well.’

  ‘Now, Jack, give us yours,’ said Jim. ‘Maybe, it will dovetail in somehow. Thirsty ghost, I imagine; maybe they had prohibition here even then!’

  Jack folded his napkin, and leaned back in his most impressive manner.

  ‘It was striking twelve by the great hall clock—’ he began.

  ‘There isn’t any hall clock!’

  ‘O hush, Jim, you spoil the current! It was just one o’clock then, by my old-fashioned repeater.’

  ‘Waterbury! Never mind what time it was!’

  ‘Well, honestly, I woke up sharp, like our beloved hostess, and tried to go to sleep again, but couldn’t. I experienced all those moonlight and grasshopper sensations, just like Jenny, and was wondering what could have been the matter with the supper, when in came my ghost, and I knew it was all a dream! It was a female ghost, and I imagine she was young and handsome, but all those crouching, hunted figures of last evening ran riot in my brain, and this poor creature looked just like them. She was all wrapped up in a shawl, and had a big bundle under her arm, — dear me, I am spoiling the story! With the air and gait of one in frantic haste and terror, the muffled figure glided to a dark old bureau, and seemed taking things from the drawers. As she turned, the moonlight shone full on a little red cross that hung from her neck by a thin gold chain — I saw it glitter as she crept noiselessly from the room! That’s all.’

  ‘O Jack, don’t be so horrid! Did you really? Is that all! What do you think it was?’

  ‘I am not horrid by nature, only professionally. I really did. That was all. And I am fully convinced it was the genuine, legitimate ghost of an eloping chambermaid with kleptomania!’

  ‘You are too bad, Jack!’ cried Jenny. ‘You take all the horror out of it. There isn’t a “creep” left among us.’

  ‘It’s no time for creeps at nine-thirty a m., with sunlight and carpenters outside! However, if you can’t wait till twilight for your creeps, I think I can furnish one or two,’ said George. ‘I went down cellar after Jenny’s ghost!’

  There was a delighted chorus of female voices, and Jenny cast upon her lord a glance of genuine gratitude.

  ‘It’s all very well to lie in bed and see ghosts, or hear them,’ he went on. ‘But the young householder suspecteth burglars, even though as a medical man he knoweth nerves, and after Jenny dropped off I started on a voyage of discovery. I never will again, I promise you!’

  ‘Why, what was it?’

  ‘Oh, George!’

  ‘I got a candle—’

  ‘Good mark for the burglars,’ murmured Jack.

  ‘And went all over the house, gradually working down to the cellar and the well.’

  ‘Well?’ said Jack.

  ‘Now you can laugh; but that cellar is no joke by daylight, and a candle there at night is about as inspiring as a lightning-bug in the Mammoth Cave. I went along with the light, trying not to fall into the well prematurely; got to it all at once; held the light down and then I saw, right under my feet — (I nearly fell over her, or walked through her, perhaps), — a woman, hunched up under a shawl! She had hold of the chain, and the candle shone on her hands — white, thin hands, — on a little red cross that hung from her neck — vide Jack! I’m no believer in ghosts, and I firmly object to unknown parties in the house at night; so I spoke to her rather fiercely. She didn’t seem to notice that, and I reached down to take hold of her, — then I came upstairs!’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘What was the matter?’

  ‘Well, nothing happened. Only she wasn’t there! May have been indigestion, of course, but as a physician I don’t advise any one to court indigestion alone at midnight in a cellar!’

  ‘This is the most interesting and peripatetic and evasive ghost I ever heard of!’ said Jack. ‘It’s my belief she has no end of silver tankards, and jewels galore, at the bottom of that well, and I move we go and see!’

  ‘To the bottom of the well, Jack?’

  ‘To the bottom of the mystery. Come on!’

  There was unanimous assent, and the fresh cambrics and pretty boots were gallantly escorted below by gentlemen whose jokes were so frequent that many of them were a little forced.

  The deep old cellar was so dark that they had to bring lights, and the well so gloomy in its blackness that the ladies recoiled.

  ‘That well is enough to scare even a ghost. It’s my opinion you’d better let well enough alone?’ quoth Jim.

  ‘Truth lies hid in a well, and we must get her out,’ said George. ‘Bear a hand with the chain?’

  Jim pulled away on the chain, George turned the creaking windlass, and Jack was chorus.

  ‘A wet sheet for this ghost, if not a flowing sea,’ said he. ‘Seems to be hard work raising spirits! I suppose he kicked the bucket when he went down!’

  As the chain lightened and shortened there grew a strained silence among them; and when at length the bucket appeared, rising slowly through the dark water, there was an eager, half reluctant peering, and a natural drawing back. They poked the gloomy contents. ‘Only water.’

  ‘Nothing but mud.’

  ‘Something—’

  They emptied the bucket up on the dark earth, and then the girls all went out into the air, into the bright warm sunshine in front of the house, where was the sound of saw and hammer, and the smell of new wood. There was nothing said until the men joined them, and then Jenny timidly asked:

  ‘How old should you think it was, George?’

  ‘All of a century,’ he answered. ‘That water is a preservative, — lime in it. Oh! — you mean? — Not more than a month; a very little baby!’

  There was another silence at this, broken by a cry from the workmen. They had removed the floor and the side walls of the old porch, so that the sunshine poured down to the dark stones of the cellar bottom. And there, in the strangling grasp of the roots of the great wistaria, lay the bones of a woman, from whose neck still hung a tiny scarlet cross on a thin chain of gold.

  AN EXTINCT ANGEL

  THERE was once a species of angel inhabiting this planet, acting as ‘a universal solvent’ to all the jarring, irreconcilable elements of human life.

  It was quite numerous; almost every family had one; and, although differing in degree of seraphic virtue, all were, by common consent, angels.

  The advantages of possessing such a creature were untold. In the first place, the chances of the mere human being in the way of getting to heaven were greatly increased by these semi-heavenly belonging
s; they gave one a sort of lien on the next world, a practical claim most comforting to the owner.

  For the angels of course possessed virtues above mere humanity; and because the angels were so well-behaved, therefore the owners were given credit.

  Beside this direct advantage of complimentary tickets up above were innumerable indirect advantages below. The possession of one of these angels smoothed every feature of life, and gave peace and joy to an otherwise hard lot.

  It was the business of the angel to assuage, to soothe, to comfort, to delight. No matter how unruly were the passions of the owner, sometimes even to the extent of legally beating his angel with ‘a stick no thicker than his thumb,’ the angel was to have no passion whatever — unless self-sacrifice may be called a passion, and indeed it often amounted to one with her.

  The human creature went out to his daily toil and comforted himself as he saw fit. He was apt to come home tired and cross, and in this exigency it was the business of the angel to wear a smile for his benefit — a soft, perennial, heavenly smile.

  By an unfortunate limitation of humanity the angel was required, in addition to such celestial duties as smiling and soothing, to do kitchen service, cleaning, sewing, nursing, and other mundane tasks. But these things must be accomplished without the slightest diminution of the angelic virtues.

  The angelic virtues, by the way, were of a curiously paradoxical nature.

  They were inherent. A human being did not pretend to name them, could not be expected to have them, acknowledged them as far beyond his gross earthly nature; and yet, for all this, he kept constant watch over the virtues of the angel, wrote whole books of advice for angels on how they should behave, and openly held that angels would lose their virtues altogether should they once cease to obey the will and defer to the judgment of human kind.

  This looks strange to us to-day as we consider these past conditions, but then it seemed fair enough; and the angels — bless their submissive, patient hearts! — never thought of questioning it.

  It was perhaps only to be expected that when an angel fell the human creature should punish the celestial creature with unrelenting fury. It was so much easier to be an angel than to be human, that there was no excuse for an angel’s falling, even by means of her own angelic pity and tender affection.

  It seems perhaps hard that the very human creature the angel fell on, or fell with, or fell to — however you choose to put it — was as harsh as anyone in condemnation of the fall. He never assisted the angel to rise, but got out from under and resumed his way, leaving her in the mud. She was a great convenience to walk on, and, as was stoutly maintained by the human creature, helped keep the other angels clean.

  This is exceedingly mysterious, and had better not be inquired into too closely.

  The amount of physical labor of a severe and degrading sort required of one of these bright spirits, was amazing. Certain kinds of work — always and essentially dirty — were relegated wholly to her. Yet one of her first and most rigid duties was the keeping of her angelic robes spotlessly clean.

  The human creature took great delight in contemplating the flowing robes of the angels. Their changeful motion suggested to him all manner of sweet and lovely thoughts and memories; also, the angelic virtues above mentioned were supposed largely to inhere in the flowing robes. Therefore flow they must, and the ample garments waved unchecked over the weary limbs of the wearer, the contiguous furniture and the stairs. For the angels unfortunately had no wings, and their work was such as required a good deal of going up and down stairs.

  It is quite a peculiar thing, in contemplating this work, to see how largely it consisted in dealing with dirt. Yes, it does seem strange to this enlightened age; but the fact was that the angels waited on the human creatures in every form of menial service, doing things as their natural duty which the human creature loathed and scorned.

  It does seem irreconcilable, but they reconciled it. The angel was an angel and the work was the angel’s work, and what more do you want?

  There is one thing about the subject which looks a little suspicious: The angels — I say it under breath — were not very bright!

  The human creatures did not like intelligent angels — intelligence seemed to dim their shine, somehow, and pale their virtues. It was harder to reconcile things where the angels had any sense. Therefore every possible care was taken to prevent the angels from learning anything of our gross human wisdom.

  But little by little, owing to the unthought-of consequences of repeated intermarriage between the angel and the human being, the angel longed for, found and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge.

  And in that day she surely died.

  The species is now extinct. It is rumored that here and there in remote regions you can still find a solitary specimen — in places where no access is to be had to the deadly fruit; but the race as a race is extinct.

  Poor dodo!

  THE ROCKING-CHAIR

  A WAVING spot of sunshine, a signal light that caught the eye at once in a waste of commonplace houses, and all the dreary dimness of a narrow city street.

  Across some low roof that made a gap in the wall of masonry, shot a level, brilliant beam of the just-setting sun, touching the golden head of a girl in an open window.

  She sat in a high-backed rocking-chair with brass mountings that glittered as it swung, rocking slowly back and forth, never lifting her head, but fairly lighting up the street with the glory of her sunlit hair.

  We two stopped and stared, and, so staring, caught sight of a small sign in a lower window— ‘Furnished Lodgings.’ With a common impulse we crossed the street and knocked at the dingy front door.

  Slow, even footsteps approached from within, and a soft girlish laugh ceased suddenly as the door opened, showing us an old woman, with a dull, expressionless face and faded eyes.

  Yes, she had rooms to let. Yes, we could see them. No, there was no service. No, there were no meals. So murmuring monotonously, she led the way up-stairs. It was an ordinary house enough, on a poor sort of street, a house in no way remarkable or unlike its fellows.

  She showed us two rooms, connected, neither better nor worse than most of their class, rooms without a striking feature about them, unless it was the great brass-bound chair we found still rocking gently by the window.

  But the gold-haired girl was nowhere to be seen.

  I fancied I heard the light rustle of girlish robes in the inner chamber — a breath of that low laugh — but the door leading to this apartment was locked, and when I asked the woman if we could see the other rooms she said she had no other rooms to let.

  A few words aside with Hal, and we decided to take these two, and move in at once. There was no reason we should not. We were looking for lodgings when that swinging sunbeam caught our eyes, and the accommodations were fully as good as we could pay for. So we closed our bargain on the spot, returned to our deserted boarding-house for a few belongings, and were settled anew that night.

  Hal and I were young newspaper men, ‘penny-a-liners,’ part of that struggling crowd of aspirants who are to literature what squires and pages were to knighthood in olden days. We were winning our spurs. So far it was slow work, unpleasant and ill-paid — so was squireship and pagehood, I am sure; menial service and laborious polishing of armor; long running afoot while the master rode. But the squire could at least honor his lord and leader, while we, alas! had small honor for those above us in our profession, with but too good reason. We, of course, should do far nobler things when these same spurs were won!

  Now it may have been mere literary instinct — the grasping at ‘material’ of the pot-boiling writers of the day, and it may have been another kind of instinct — the unacknowledged attraction of the fair unknown; but, whatever the reason, the place had drawn us both, and here we were.

  Unbroken friendship begun in babyhood held us two together, all the more closely because Hal was a merry, prosaic, clear-headed fellow, and I sensitive and
romantic.

  The fearless frankness of family life we shared, but held the right to unapproachable reserves, and so kept love unstrained.

  We examined our new quarters with interest. The front room, Hal’s, was rather big and bare. The back room, mine, rather small and bare.

  He preferred that room, I am convinced, because of the window and the chair. I preferred the other, because of the locked door. We neither of us mentioned these prejudices.

  ‘Are you sure you would not rather have this room?’ asked Hal, conscious, perhaps, of an ulterior motive in his choice.

  ‘No, indeed,’ said I, with a similar reservation; ‘you only have the street and I have a real “view” from my window. The only thing I begrudge you is the chair!’

  ‘You may come and rock therein at any hour of the day or night,’ said he magnanimously. ‘It is tremendously comfortable, for all its black looks.’

  It was a comfortable chair, a very comfortable chair, and we both used it a great deal. A very high-backed chair, curving a little forward at the top, with heavy square corners. These corners, the ends of the rockers, the great sharp knobs that tipped the arms, and every other point and angle were mounted in brass.

  ‘Might be used for a battering-ram!’ said Hal.

  He sat smoking in it, rocking slowly and complacently by the window, while I lounged on the foot of the bed, and watched a pale young moon sink slowly over the western housetops.

  It went out of sight at last, and the room grew darker and darker till I could only see Hal’s handsome head and the curving chair-back move slowly to and fro against the dim sky.

  ‘What brought us here so suddenly, Maurice?’ he asked, out of the dark.

  ‘Three reasons,’ I answered. ‘Our need of lodgings, the suitability of these, and a beautiful head.’

  ‘Correct,’ said he. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Nothing you would admit the existence of, my sternly logical friend. But I am conscious of a certain compulsion, or at least attraction, in the case, which does not seem wholly accounted for, even by golden hair.’