More Deadly than the Male

by Graeme Davis

  I would not wear it, for, in spite of its innocent color, it is an evil-looking plant, with its adder’s tongue and unnatural dew. Wait till Niles tells us what it is, then pet it if it is harmless.

  “Perhaps my sorceress cherished it for some symbolic beauty—those old Egyptians were full of fancies. It was very sly of you to turn the tables on me in this way. But I forgive you, since in a few hours, I shall chain this mysterious hand forever. How cold it is! Come out into the garden and get some warmth and color for tonight, my love.”

  But when night came, no-one could reproach the girl with her pallor, for she glowed like a pomegranate-flower, her eyes were full of fire, her lips scarlet, and all her old vivacity seemed to have returned. A more brilliant bride never blushed under a misty veil, and when her lover saw her, he was absolutely startled by the almost unearthly beauty which transformed the pale, languid creature of the morning into this radiant woman.

  They were married, and if love, many blessings, and all good gifts lavishly showered upon them could make them happy, then this young pair were truly blest. But even in the rapture of the moment that made her his, Forsyth observed how icy cold was the little hand he held, how feverish the deep color on the soft cheek he kissed, and what a strange fire burned in the tender eyes that looked so wistfully at him.

  Blithe and beautiful as a spirit, the smiling bride played her part in all the festivities of that long evening, and when at last light, life and color began to fade, the loving eyes that watched her thought it but the natural weariness of the hour. As the last guest departed, Forsyth was met by a servant, who gave him a letter marked “Haste.” Tearing it open, he read these lines, from a friend of the professor’s:

  “DEAR SIR—Poor Niles died suddenly two days ago, while at the Scientific Club, and his last words were: ‘Tell Paul Forsyth to beware of the Mummy’s Curse, for this fatal flower has killed me.’ The circumstances of his death were so peculiar, that I add them as a sequel to this message. For several months, as he told us, he had been watching an unknown plant, and that evening he brought us the flower to examine. Other matters of interest absorbed us till a late hour, and the plant was forgotten. The professor wore it in his buttonhole—a strange white, serpent-headed blossom, with pale glittering spots, which slowly changed to a glittering scarlet, till the leaves looked as if sprinkled with blood. It was observed that instead of the pallor and feebleness which had recently come over him, that the professor was unusually animated, and seemed in an almost unnatural state of high spirits. Near the close of the meeting, in the midst of a lively discussion, he suddenly dropped, as if smitten with apoplexy. He was conveyed home insensible, and after one lucid interval, in which he gave me the message I have recorded above, he died in great agony, raving of mummies, pyramids, serpents, and some fatal curse which had fallen upon him.

  “After his death, livid scarlet spots, like those on the flower, appeared upon his skin, and he shriveled like a withered leaf. At my desire, the mysterious plant was examined, and pronounced by the best authority one of the most deadly poisons known to the Egyptian sorceresses. The plant slowly absorbs the vitality of whoever cultivates it, and the blossom, worn for two or three hours, produces either madness or death.”

  Down dropped the paper from Forsyth’s hand; he read no further, but hurried back into the room where he had left his young wife. As if worn out with fatigue, she had thrown herself upon a couch, and lay there motionless, her face half-hidden by the light folds of the veil, which had blown over it.

  “Evelyn, my dearest! Wake up and answer me. Did you wear that strange flower today?” whispered Forsyth, putting the misty screen away.

  There was no need for her to answer, for there, gleaming spectrally on her bosom, was the evil blossom, its white petals spotted now with flecks of scarlet, vivid as drops of newly spilt blood.

  But the unhappy bridegroom scarcely saw it, for the face above it appalled him by its utter vacancy. Drawn and pallid, as if with some wasting malady, the young face, so lovely an hour ago, lay before him aged and blighted by the baleful influence of the plant which had drunk up her life. No recognition in the eyes, no word upon the lips, no motion of the hand—only the faint breath, the fluttering pulse, and wide-opened eyes, betrayed that she was alive.

  Alas for the young wife! The superstitious fear at which she had smiled had proved true: the curse that had bided its time for ages was fulfilled at last, and her own hand wrecked her happiness for ever. Death in life was her doom, and for years Forsyth secluded himself to tend with pathetic devotion the pale ghost, who never, by word or look, could thank him for the love that outlived even such a fate as this.

  *French: mischievous.

  TOM TOOTHACRE’S GHOST STORY

  by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  1869

  Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1811, one of thirteen children born to Calvinist preacher Lyman Beecher. Several of her brothers became noted preachers; her elder sister Catharine was a pioneering educator and champion of women’s education; and her younger half-sister Isabella Beecher Hooker became a leading light of the American suffragist movement. Harriet enrolled in the Hartford Female Seminary run by her sister Catharine, where she received the type of comprehensive education normally reserved for boys.

  Along with her father, a twenty-one-year-old Harriet moved to Cincinnati in 1832, where she quickly became involved in the booming city’s literary scene. There she met and married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a widowed Biblical scholar at the seminary where her father taught. The two became active supporters of the Underground Railroad, sheltering fugitive slaves on their way to Canada: these experiences moved her to write her most famous work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  She wrote on a number of topics: sketches of New England life; explorations of witchcraft and spiritualism; biographies of women from the Bible; and an account of Lady Byron’s life and tempestuous marriage to the scandalous poet, which was denounced as indecent and cost her some popularity. Far from courting sensation, however, Stowe maintained that the book was written “in defence of a beloved, revered friend, whose memory stood forth in the eyes of the civilised world charged with most repulsive crimes, of which I certainly knew her innocent.”

  Stowe’s ghost stories are lighter fare altogether: most of them turn out not to be supernatural at all, but rather the product of human credulousness and mischief. “The Ghost in the Old Mill” is the best-known, but in many ways “Tom Toothacre’s Ghost Story” is the better tale. Part of the collection Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside Stories, it is written in a strong New England dialect that makes it challenging for the modern reader, but it is a solid and satisfying ghost story that repays persistence.

  What is it about that old house in Sherbourne?” said Aunt Nabby to Sam Lawson, as he sat drooping over the coals of a great fire one October evening.

  Aunt Lois was gone to Boston on a visit; and, the smart spice of her scepticism being absent, we felt the more freedom to start our story-teller on one of his legends.

  Aunt Nabby sat trotting her knitting-needles on a blue-mixed yarn stocking. Grandmamma was knitting in unison at the other side of the fire. Grandfather sat studying “The Boston Courier.” The wind outside was sighing in fitful wails, creaking the pantry-doors, occasionally puffing in a vicious gust down the broad throat of the chimney. It was a drizzly, sleety evening; and the wet lilac-bushes now and then rattled and splashed against the window as the wind moaned and whispered through them.

  We boys had made preparation for a comfortable evening. We had enticed Sam to the chimney-corner, and drawn him a mug of cider. We had set down a row of apples to roast on the hearth, which even now were giving faint sighs and sputters as their plump sides burst in the genial heat. The big oak back-log simmered and bubbled, and distilled large drops down amid the ashes; and the great hickory forestick had just burned out into solid bright coals, faintly skimmed over with white ashes. The whole area of the big chimney was full of a
sleepy warmth and brightness just calculated to call forth fancies and visions. It only wanted somebody now to set Sam off; and Aunt Nabby broached the ever-interesting subject of haunted houses.

  “Wal, now, Miss Badger,” said Sam, “I ben over there, and walked round that are house consid’able; and I talked with Granny Hokum and Aunt Polly, and they’ve putty much come to the conclusion that they’ll hev to move out on’t. Ye see these ’ere noises, they keep ’em awake nights; and Aunt Polly, she gets ’stericky; and Hannah Jane, she says, ef they stay in the house, she can’t live with ’em no longer. And what can them lone women do without Hannah Jane? Why, Hannah Jane, she says these two months past she’s seen a woman, regular, walking up and down the front hall between twelve and one o’clock at night; and it’s jist the image and body of old Ma’am Tillotson, Parson Hokum’s mother, that everybody know’d was a thunderin’ kind o’ woman, that kep’ every thing in a muss while she was alive. What the old crittur’s up to now there ain’t no knowin’. Some folks seems to think it’s a sign Granny Hokum’s time’s comin’. But Lordy massy! says she to me, says she, ‘Why, Sam, I don’t know nothin’ what I’ve done, that Ma’am Tillotson should be set loose on me.’ Anyway they’ve all got so narvy, that Jed Hokum has ben up from Needham, and is goin’ to cart ’em all over to live with him. Jed, he’s for hushin’ on’t up, ’cause he says it brings a bad name on the property.

  “Wal, I talked with Jed about it; and says I to Jed, says I, ‘Now, ef you’ll take my advice, jist you give that are old house a regular overhaulin’, and paint it over with tew coats o’ paint, and that are’ll clear ’em out, if any thing will. Ghosts is like bedbugs,—they can’t stan’ fresh paint,’ says I. ‘They allers clear out. I’ve seen it tried on a ship that got haunted.’”

  “Why, Sam, do ships get haunted?”

  “To be sure they do!—haunted the wust kind. Why, I could tell ye a story’d make your har rise on eend, only I’m ’fraid of frightening boys when they’re jist going to bed.”

  “Oh! you can’t frighten Horace,” said my grandmother. “He will go and sit out there in the graveyard till nine o’clock nights, spite of all I tell him.”

  “Do tell, Sam!” we urged. “What was it about the ship?”

  Sam lifted his mug of cider, deliberately turned it round and round in his hands, eyed it affectionately, took a long drink, and set it down in front of him on the hearth, and began:—

  “Ye ’member I telled you how I went to sea down East, when I was a boy, ’long with Tom Toothacre. Wal, Tom, he reeled off a yarn one night that was ’bout the toughest I ever hed the pullin’ on. And it come all straight, too, from Tom. ‘Twa’n’t none o’ yer hearsay: ’twas what he seen with his own eyes. Now, there wa’n’t no nonsense ’bout Tom, not a bit on’t; and he wa’n’t afeard o’ the divil himse’f; and he ginally saw through things about as straight as things could be seen through. This ’ere happened when Tom was mate o’ The Albatross, and they was a-runnin’ up to the Banks for a fare o’ fish. The Albatross was as handsome a craft as ever ye see; and Cap’n Sim Witherspoon, he was skipper—a rail nice likely man he was. I heard Tom tell this ’ere one night to the boys on The Brilliant, when they was all a-settin’ round the stove in the cabin one foggy night that we was to anchor in Frenchman’s Bay, and all kind o’ lavin’ off loose.

  “Tom, he said they was having a famous run up to the Banks. There was a spankin’ southerly, that blew ’em along like all natur’; and they was hevin’ the best kind of a time, when this ’ere southerly brought a pesky fog down on ’em, and it grew thicker than hasty-puddin’.* Ye see, that are’s the pester o’ these ’ere southerlies: they’s the biggest fog-breeders there is goin’. And so, putty soon, you couldn’t see half ship’s length afore you.

  “Wal, they all was down to supper, except Dan Sawyer at the wheel, when there come sich a crash as if heaven and earth was a-splittin’, and then a scrapin’ and thump bumpin’ under the ship, and gin ’em sich a h’ist that the pot o’ beans went rollin’, and brought up jam ag’in the bulk-head; and the fellers was keeled over,—men and pork and beans kinder permiscus.

  “‘The divil!’ says Tom Toothacre, ‘we’ve run down somebody. Look out, up there!’

  “Dan, he shoved the helm hard down, and put her up to the wind, and sung out, ‘Lordy massy! we’ve struck her right amidships!’

  “‘Struck what?’ they all yelled, and tumbled up on deck.

  “‘Why, a little schooner,’ says Dan. ‘Didn’t see her till we was right on her. She’s gone down tack and sheet. Look! there’s part o’ the wreck a-floating off: don’t ye see?’

  “Wal, they didn’t see, ’cause it was so thick you couldn’t hardly see your hand afore your face. But they put about, and sent out a boat, and kind o’ sarched round; but, Lordy massy! ye might as well looked for a drop of water in the Atlantic Ocean. Whoever they was, it was all done gone and over with ’em for this life, poor critturs!

  “Tom says they felt confoundedly about it; but what could they do? Lordy massy! what can any on us do? There’s places where folks jest lets go ’cause they hes to. Things ain’t as they want ’em, and they can’t alter ’em. Sailors ain’t so rough as they look: they’z feelin’ critturs, come to put things right to ’em. And there wasn’t one on ’em who wouldn’t’a’ worked all night for a chance o’ saving some o’ them poor fellows. But there ’twas, and ’twa’n’t no use trying.

  “Wal, so they sailed on; and by ’m by the wind kind o’ chopped round no’theast, and then come round east, and sot in for one of them regular east blows and drizzles that takes the starch out o’ fellers more’n a regular storm. So they concluded they might as well put into a little bay there, and come to anchor.

  “So they sot an anchor-watch, and all turned in.

  “Wal, now comes the particular curus part o’ Tom’s story: and it more curus ’cause Tom was one that wouldn’t’a’ believed no other man that had told it. Tom was one o’ your sort of philosophers. He was fer lookin’ into things, and wa’n’t in no hurry ’bout believin’; so that this ’un was more ’markable on account of it’s bein’ Tom that seen it than ef it had ben others.

  “Tom says that night he hed a pesky toothache that sort o’ kep’ grumblin’ and jumpin’ so he couldn’t go to sleep; and he lay in his bunk, a-turnin’ this way and that, till long past twelve o clock.

  “Tom had a’thwart-ship bunk where he could see into every bunk on board, except Bob Coffin’s; and Bob was on the anchor-watch. Wal, he lay there, tryin’ to go to sleep, hearin’ the men snorin’ like bull-frogs in a swamp, and watchin’ the lantern a-swingin’ back and forward; and the sou’westers and pea-jackets were kinder throwin’ their long shadders up and down as the vessel sort o’ rolled and pitched,—for there was a heavy swell on,—and then he’d hear Bob Coffin tramp, tramp, trampin’ overhead,—for Bob had a pretty heavy foot of his own,—and all sort o’ mixed up together with Tom’s toothache, so he couldn’t get to sleep. Finally, Tom, he bit off a great chaw o’ ’baccy, and got it well sot in his cheek, and kind o’ turned over to lie on’t, and ease the pain. Wal, he says he laid a spell, and dropped off in a sort o’ doze, when he woke in sich a chill his teeth chattered, and the pain come on like a knife, and he bounced over, thinking the fire had gone out in the stove.

  “Wal, sure enough, he see a man a-crouchin’ over the stove, with his back to him, a-stretchin’ out his hands to warm ’em. He had on a sou’wester and a pea-jacket, with a red tippet round his neck; and his clothes was drippin’ as if he’d just come in from a rain.

  “‘What the divil!’ says Tom. And he riz right up, and rubbed his eyes. ‘Bill Bridges,’ says he, ‘what shine be you up to now?’ For Bill was a master oneasy crittur, and allers a-gettin’ up and walkin’ nights; and Tom, he thought it was Bill. But in a minute he looked over, and there, sure enough, was Bill, fast asleep in his bunk, mouth wide open, snoring like a Jericho ram’s-horn. Tom looked round, and counted every man in
his bunk, and then says he, ‘Who the devil is this? for there’s Bob Coffin on deck, and the rest is all here.’

  “Wal, Tom wa’n’t a man to be put under too easy. He hed his thoughts about him allers; and the fust he thought in every pinch was what to do. So he sot considerin’ a minute, sort o’ winkin’ his eyes to be sure he saw straight, when, sure enough, there come another man backin’ down the companion-way.

  “‘Wal, there’s Bob Coffin, anyhow,’ says Tom to himself. But no, the other man, he turned: Tom see his face; and, sure as you live, it was the face of a dead corpse. Its eyes was sot, and it jest came as still across the cabin, and sot down by the stove, and kind o’ shivered, and put out its hands as if it was gettin’ warm.

  “Tom said that there was a cold air round in the cabin, as if an iceberg was comin’ near, and he felt cold chills running down his back; but he jumped out of his bunk, and took a step forward. ‘Speak!’ says he. ‘Who be you? and what do you want?’

  “They never spoke, nor looked up, but kept kind o’ shivering and crouching over the stove.

  “‘Wal,’ says Tom, ‘I’ll see who you be, anyhow.’ And he walked right up to the last man that come in, and reached out to catch hold of his coat-collar; but his hand jest went through him like moonshine, and in a minute he all faded away; and when he turned round the other one was gone too. Tom stood there, looking this way and that; but there warn’t nothing but the old stove, and the lantern swingin’, and the men all snorin’ round in their bunks. Tom, he sung out to Bob Coffin. ‘Hullo, up there!’ says he. But Bob never answered, and Tom, he went up, and found Bob down on his knees, his teeth a-chatterin’ like a bag o’ nails, trying to say his prayers; and all he could think of was, ‘Now I lay me,’ and he kep’ going that over and over. Ye see, boys, Bob was a drefful wicked, swearin’ crittur, and hadn’t said no prayers since he was tew years old, and it didn’t come natural to him. Tom give a grip on his collar, and shook him. ‘Hold yer yawp,’ said he. ‘What you howlin’ about? What’s up?’