The Phantom Coach

by Michael Sims

  “Oh speak, speak!” I cried; “answer them and tell them! you saw that window opened, and the gentleman look out and wave his hand?”

  “I saw nae gentleman,” he said, with his head down, “except this wee gentleman here.”

  “Listen, laddie,” said Aunt Mary. “I saw ye standing in the middle of the street staring. What were ye looking at?”

  “It was naething to make a wark about. It was just yon windy yonder in the library that is nae windy. And it was open as sure’s death. You may laugh if you like. Is that a’ she’s wantin’ wi’ me?”

  “You are telling a pack of lies, laddie,” Mr. Pitmilly said.

  “I’m tellin’ nae lees—it was standin’ open just like ony ither windy. It’s as sure’s death. I couldna believe it mysel’; but it’s true.”

  “And there it is,” I cried, turning round and pointing it out to them with great triumph in my heart. But the light was all grey, it had faded, it had changed. The window was just as it had always been, a sombre break upon the wall.

  I was treated like an invalid all that evening, and taken up-stairs to bed, and Aunt Mary sat up in my room the whole night through. Whenever I opened my eyes she was always sitting there close to me, watching. And there never was in all my life so strange a night. When I would talk in my excitement, she kissed me and hushed me like a child. “Oh, honey, you are not the only one!” she said. “Oh whisht, whisht, bairn! I should never have let you be there!”

  “Aunt Mary, Aunt Mary, you have seen him too?”

  “Oh whisht, whisht, honey!” Aunt Mary said: her eyes were shining—there were tears in them. “Oh whisht, whisht! Put it out of your mind, and try to sleep. I will not speak another word,” she cried.

  But I had my arms round her, and my mouth at her ear. “Who is he there?—tell me that and I will ask no more—”

  “Oh honey, rest, and try to sleep! It is just—how can I tell you?—a dream, a dream! Did you not hear what Lady Carnbee said?—the women of our blood—”

  “What? what? Aunt Mary, oh Aunt Mary—”

  “I canna tell you,” she cried in her agitation, “I canna tell you! How can I tell you, when I know just what you know and no more? It is a longing all your life after—it is a looking—for what never comes.”

  “He will come,” I cried. “I shall see him tomorrow—that I know, I know!”

  She kissed me and cried over me, her cheek hot and wet like mine. “My honey, try if you can sleep—try if you can sleep: and we’ll wait to see what tomorrow brings.”

  “I have no fear,” said I; and then I suppose, though it is strange to think of, I must have fallen asleep—I was so worn-out, and young, and not used to lying in my bed awake. From time to time I opened my eyes, and sometimes jumped up remembering everything: but Aunt Mary was always there to soothe me, and I lay down again in her shelter like a bird in its nest.

  But I would not let them keep me in bed next day. I was in a kind of fever, not knowing what I did. The window was quite opaque, without the least glimmer in it, flat and blank like a piece of wood. Never from the first day had I seen it so little like a window. “It cannot be wondered at,” I said to myself, “that seeing it like that, and with eyes that are old, not so clear as mine, they should think what they do.” And then I smiled to myself to think of the evening and the long light, and whether he would look out again, or only give me a signal with his hand. I decided I would like that best: not that he should take the trouble to come forward and open it again, but just a turn of his head and a wave of his hand. It would be more friendly and show more confidence—not as if I wanted that kind of demonstration every night.

  I did not come down in the afternoon, but kept at my own window up-stairs alone, till the tea-party should be over. I could hear them making a great talk; and I was sure they were all in the recess staring at the window, and laughing at the silly lassie. Let them laugh! I felt above all that now. At dinner I was very restless, hurrying to get it over; and I think Aunt Mary was restless too. I doubt whether she read her Times when it came; she opened it up so as to shield her, and watched from a corner. And I settled myself in the recess, with my heart full of expectation. I wanted nothing more than to see him writing at his table, and to turn his head and give me a little wave of his hand, just to show that he knew I was there. I sat from half-past seven o’clock to ten o’clock: and the daylight grew softer and softer, till at last it was as if it was shining through a pearl, and not a shadow to be seen. But the window all the time was as black as night, and there was nothing, nothing there.

  Well: but other nights it had been like that: he would not be there every night only to please me. There are other things in a man’s life, a great learned man like that. I said to myself I was not disappointed. Why should I be disappointed? There had been other nights when he was not there. Aunt Mary watched me, every movement I made, her eyes shining, often wet, with a pity in them that almost made me cry: but I felt as if I were more sorry for her than for myself. And then I flung myself upon her, and asked her, again and again, what it was, and who it was, imploring her to tell me if she knew? and when she had seen him, and what had happened? and what it meant about the women of our blood? She told me that how it was she could not tell, nor when: it was just at the time it had to be; and that we all saw him in our time—“that is,” she said, “the ones that are like you and me.” What was it that made her and me different from the rest? but she only shook her head and would not tell me. “They say,” she said, and then stopped short. “Oh, honey, try and forget all about it—if I had but known you were of that kind! They say—that once there was one that was a Scholar, and liked his books more than any lady’s love. Honey, do not look at me like that. To think I should have brought all this on you!”

  “He was a Scholar?” I cried.

  “And one of us, that must have been a light woman, not like you and me. But maybe it was just in innocence; for who can tell? She waved to him and waved to him to come over: and yon ring was the token: but he would not come. But still she sat at her window and waved and waved—till at last her brothers heard of it, that were stirring men; and then—oh, my honey, let us speak of it no more!”

  “They killed him!” I cried, carried away. And then I grasped her with my hands, and gave her a shake, and flung away from her. “You tell me that to throw dust in my eyes—when I saw him only last night: and he as living as I am, and as young!”

  “My honey, my honey!” Aunt Mary said.

  After that I would not speak to her for a long time; but she kept close to me, never leaving me when she could help it, and always with that pity in her eyes. For the next night it was the same; and the third night. That third night I thought I could not bear it any longer. I would have to do something if only I knew what to do! If it would ever get dark, quite dark, there might be something to be done. I had wild dreams of stealing out of the house and getting a ladder, and mounting up to try if I could not open that window, in the middle of the night—if perhaps I could get the baker’s boy to help me; and then my mind got into a whirl, and it was as if I had done it; and I could almost see the boy put the ladder to the window, and hear him cry out that there was nothing there. Oh, how slow it was, the night! and how light it was, and everything so clear, no darkness to cover you, no shadow, whether on one side of the street or on the other side! I could not sleep, though I was forced to go to bed. And in the deep midnight, when it is dark, dark in every other place, I slipped very softly down-stairs, though there was one board on the landing-place that creaked—and opened the door and stepped out. There was not a soul to be seen, up or down, from the Abbey to the West Port: and the trees stood like ghosts, and the silence was terrible, and everything as clear as day. You don’t know what silence is till you find it in the light like that, not morning but night, no sunrising, no shadow, but everything as clear as the day.

  It did not make any difference as the slow minutes went on: one o’clock, two o’clock. How strange it w
as to hear the clocks striking in that dead light when there was nobody to hear them! But it made no difference. The window was quite blank; even the marking of the panes seemed to have melted away. I stole up again after a long time, through the silent house, in the clear light, cold and trembling, with despair in my heart.

  I am sure Aunt Mary must have watched and seen me coming back, for after a while I heard faint sounds in the house; and very early, when there had come a little sunshine into the air, she came to my bedside with a cup of tea in her hand; and she, too, was looking like a ghost. “Are you warm, honey—are you comfortable?” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said I. I did not feel as if anything mattered; unless if one could get into the dark somewhere—the soft, deep dark that would cover you over and hide you—but I could not tell from what. The dreadful thing was that there was nothing, nothing to look for, nothing to hide from—only the silence and the light.

  That day my mother came and took me home. I had not heard she was coming; she arrived quite unexpectedly, and said she had no time to stay, but must start the same evening so as to be in London next day, papa having settled to go abroad. At first I had a wild thought I would not go. But how can a girl say I will not, when her mother has come for her, and there is no reason, no reason in the world, to resist, and no right! I had to go, whatever I might wish or any one might say. Aunt Mary’s dear eyes were wet; she went about the house drying them quietly with her handkerchief, but she always said, “It is the best thing for you, honey—the best thing for you!” Oh, how I hated to hear it said that it was the best thing, as if anything mattered, one more than another! The old ladies were all there in the afternoon, Lady Carnbee looking at me from under her black lace, and the diamond lurking, sending out darts from under her finger. She patted me on the shoulder, and told me to be a good bairn. “And never lippen to what you see from the window,” she said. “The eye is deceitful as well as the heart.” She kept patting me on the shoulder, and I felt again as if that sharp wicked stone stung me. Was that what Aunt Mary meant when she said yon ring was the token? I thought afterwards I saw the mark on my shoulder. You will say why? How can I tell why? If I had known, I should have been contented, and it would not have mattered any more.

  I never went back to St. Rule’s, and for years of my life I never again looked out of a window when any other window was in sight. You ask me did I ever see him again? I cannot tell: the imagination is a great deceiver, as Lady Carnbee said: and if he stayed there so long, only to punish the race that had wronged him, why should I ever have seen him again? for I had received my share. But who can tell what happens in a heart that often, often, and so long as that, comes back to do its errand? If it was he whom I have seen again, the anger is gone from him, and he means good and no longer harm to the house of the woman that loved him. I have seen his face looking at me from a crowd. There was one time when I came home a widow from India, very sad, with my little children: I am certain I saw him there among all the people coming to welcome their friends. There was nobody to welcome me,—for I was not expected: and very sad was I, without a face I knew: when all at once I saw him, and he waved his hand to me. My heart leaped up again: I had forgotten who he was, but only that it was a face I knew, and I landed almost cheerfully, thinking here was some one who would help me. But he had disappeared, as he did from the window, with that one wave of his hand.

  And again I was reminded of it all when old Lady Carnbee died—an old, old woman—and it was found in her will that she had left me that diamond ring. I am afraid of it still. It is locked up in an old sandal-wood box in the lumber-room in the little old country-house which belongs to me, but where I never live. If any one would steal it, it would be a relief to my mind. Yet I never knew what Aunt Mary meant when she said, “Yon ring was the token,” nor what it could have to do with that strange window in the old College Library of St. Rule’s.

  W. W. Jacobs

  1863–1943

  “The Monkey’s Paw” was the scariest story that the editor of this anthology read as a child. One of the most critically acclaimed ghost stories, it could not be omitted from a gathering of the greats.

  With his first story collection, Many Cargoes, which was published during his mid-twenties, William Wymark Jacobs launched a lively career. In his own time, he was known more for humorous tales than for horrific. He wrote many playful accounts of, as Punch described it, “men who go down to the sea in ships of moderate tonnage”—books with titles such as The Skipper’s Wooing, Short Cruises, and Sailors’ Knots. He came to this setting naturally. His father was the wharf manager at Wapping, in London’s shipping district. Young William grew up on the docks. He also wrote country tales about the ill-fated poacher Bob Pretty. Over the years, staying within his narrow range of expertise, Jacobs turned to writing comic plays on the themes familiar from his stories.

  Although he was a thoughtful craftsman, for his light-hearted writing Jacobs was classed among the so-called New Humorists, who brought a broader use of vernacular speech and everyday settings into a tradition of humor that had often focused on the upper classes—although the often farcical Jacobs could never be accused of gritty realism. He found himself grouped with Barry Pain, who also wrote horror stories, and Jerome K. Jerome, author of Three Men in a Boat and editor of the influential magazine the Idler, which he cofounded with Robert Barr, author of the Eugene Valmont detective stories.

  Jacobs is remembered now primarily for a number of excellent supernatural stories, such as “His Brother’s Keeper” and the great haunted-house tale “The Toll-House,” and “The Interruption,” with its memorable opening, “The last of the funeral guests had gone . . .” His masterpiece, however, was “The Monkey’s Paw,” which first appeared in the September 1902 issue of Harper’s Monthly and the same year in Jacobs’s collection The Lady of the Barge.

  Notoriously shy, Jacobs hated public appearances. J. B. Priestley wrote of a Jacobs reading: “In the poor light of the low platform he uttered very swift words in an inaudible voice, hidden behind his manuscript, which, because it was very difficult to read, caused him to make great pauses of direful silence in the most inopportune places.”

  Despite his conservatism, Jacobs married a busy suffragette, Agnes Eleanor Williams, and apparently they did not flourish as a couple.

  The Monkey’s Paw

  I

  Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.

  “Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from seeing it.

  “I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he stretched out his hand. “Check.”

  “I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father, with his hand poised over the board.

  “Mate,” replied the son.

  “That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with sudden and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about. I suppose because only two houses on the road are let, they think it doesn’t matter.”

  “Never mind, dear,” said his wife soothingly; “perhaps you’ll win the next one.”

  Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he hid a guilty grin in his thin grey beard.

  “There he is,” said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and heavy footsteps came toward the door.

  The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard condoling with the
new arrival. The new arrival also condoled with himself, so that Mrs. White said, “Tut, tut!” and coughed gently as her husband entered the room, followed by a tall burly man, beady of eye and rubicund of visage.

  “Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him.

  The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat by the fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whisky and tumblers and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.

  At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke of strange scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange peoples.

  “Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son. “When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now look at him.”

  “He don’t look to have taken much harm,” said Mrs. White, politely.

  “I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look round a bit, you know.”

  “Better where you are,” said the sergeant-major, shaking his head. He put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again.

  “I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,” said the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day about a monkey’s paw or something, Morris?”

  “Nothing,” said the soldier hastily. “Leastways, nothing worth hearing.”

  “Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White curiously.

  “Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said the sergeant-major off-handedly.

  His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absentmindedly put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again. His host filled it for him.